D'ROYSENS       ^. 
INCIPLES   OF  HISTORY 


ANDREWS 


O  XJ  T  X.  IIS^  E 


PRINCIPLES  OF  IILSTOIIY 

(GRUNDRLS.S  DER  ULSTOKIK) 


BY 


JOHANISr    GUSTAV    DROYSEN", 

LATE  PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  IN  THE 
I'NIVERSITY  OF   IIERLIX. 


WITH  A  BIOfiRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  AUTHOR. 


TRANSLATED   BY 

E.    BENJAMIN     ANDREWS, 

fUHilDEXt  OF  BBOWN   UNIVEBSITT. 


BOSTON,  U.S.A. 
GINN     &     COMPANY. 
1 S  9  7. 


Copyright,  1893, 
By   E.    benjamin   ANDREWS. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 


(Binn  &.  Company 

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aLu<^^^-   ^•^^  ^«^A  tJ^^U,  ^i-^yt^ 


(OXTKXTS. 


TlJAXSI.ATOIt's      I'lilvK ACK  .      

AiTiioii's    I'kkkack 

.Vl  Tllolt's       I'UKFACE    TO    Till;    'J'mi;l>     KlUTKtN 

IJKtiiKAriiK  Ai.    Ski:i(  II    or    Dkovskx 


Oi  Ti-iNK    or  tin:   ri!iN(iri.i:s  of  Ilisronv 3 

InTI{OI»I(TION  : 

I.     IIlSTOKV 9 

II.     TlIK     IIlSTOIiKAL    MkTIIOI) 12 

III.    'I'm;    I'i;oI!i.i;m    of  this   ••Oiii.im;""    16 

Tin:   I)(jc'ti;ixe   of   Mkthod 17 

I.    Isvkntiox 18 

II.     ClMTK  ISM 21 

III.     iNTEItrRETATIOX    26 

The  DofTinxE  of   System 32 

I.   Till-;  Woi:k   ok   IIistouv   i\    IJki.aiton    to    its    Kinks  of 

Mattek  35 

11.    Tin;   Work  of  Histoky  ix  Kei.atiox  to  its  Foij.ms 30 

III.  The  AVoi:k  of  Histoky  in  Ufi.atiox  to  the  A\'oi;ki;hs..  .  43 

IV.  The   Wokk  of  Histoky  ix  Keeatiox  to  its  Ends  4(! 
The    Doctijixe  of  Systematic  Pisesextatiox 4!J 

Ai'i'EXDix       T.     i'liK   Ei.evaitox  of  Histoky  to  tiii:    J!  vnk   of 

A   Science (il 

Ai'PEXDix     II.    Xatike  axi)  History. iH) 

Ari'EXDix  III.    Art  axd   Method lO.j 

IXDEX  121 


1703320 


TRAXSLATOirS  IMIEFACE. 


1  IJKCAMK  iiiteiestud  in  Professor  Droysen  as  an  his- 
torian so  early  as  1882.  In  real  grasp  upon  the  nature 
and  meaning  of  history  he  seemed  to  me  the  superior 
of  Kanke.  This  view  I  have  not  changed.  To  assist 
myself  in  comprehending  his  very  deep  thoughts  I  soon 
began  a  translation  of  the  Historik.  At  fii-st  I  had  no 
idea  of  publishing,  but  as  the  value  of  the  little  work 
impressed  me  more  and  more  deeply,  I  at  last  deter- 
mined to  English  it  for  others.  I  subsequently  laid  the 
matter  before  Droysen,  receiving  his  approval  in  the 
genial  letter  which  appeai-s  upon  a  precedip.g  page. 
I  expected  to  linish  the  work  in  a  few  months  from 
the  date  of  this  letter,  but  more  pressing  laboi-s  came 
and  l)ecame  permanent,  so  connnanding  my  time  that 
I  have  never  since  been  able  to  devote  to  the  transla- 
tion more  than  now  and  then  an  hour.  At  last,  how- 
ever, after  so  many  years,  it  Ls  completed,  and  I  give 
it  to  the  public,  appendices  and  all.  These  greatly 
elucidate  the  -  Outline  "  proper,  and  may  very  appro- 
priately Ixj  read  fii-st.  Those  who  know  Droysen's  cum- 
brous yet  nervous  and  abl)reviated  style  of  writing  will 
not  estimate  the  extent  of  my  toil  by  the  numl)er  of 
pages  in  this  book. 

Such  was  my  reverence  f(»r  Droysen  that,  after  his 
death  in  1884,   I   cherished   the  hope   of  preparing  a 


Vi  TEANSLATOll  S    PREFACE. 

brief  biography  of  him.  1  relinquished  this  half-formed 
purpose  partly  for  lack  of  time,  and  partly  because 
several  excellent  sketches  of  him  presently  appeared. 
Max  Duncker  himself  wrote  two  of  these,  one  in  Ivan 
Miiller\s  Biographical  Year-Book  for  the  Knowledge 
of  Antiquity,  also  published  separately,  and  a  more 
extended  one  in  the  Prussian  Year-Book  for  August, 
1884  (LIV,  Heft  2),  edited  by  von  Treitschke  and  Del- 
briick.  Duncker  was  Droysen's  close  friend,  and  had 
access  to  much  helpful  material  in  manuscript.  I  in- 
clined to  translate  one  of  his  pieces  for  use  in  this 
volume,  but  upon  reflection  thought  the  biography  of 
Dr.  Hermann  Kriiger  likely  to  be  more  interesting  to 
American  readers.  Professor  G.  Droysen,  son  of  the 
author  of  the  "Outline,"  considers  Kriiger's  account 
on  the  whole  better  than  aught  else  which  Avas  written 
upon  his  father's  life  and  work.  This  biography  first 
came  out  in  the  form  of  articles  in  the  Mecklenburg 
Anzeiger^  the  last  one  appearing  on  Saturday,  August  2, 
1884.  Kriiger,  too,  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Droy- 
sen's. I  could  not  have  hoped  to  write  anything  better 
than  what  these  two  competent  and  privileged  biogra- 
phers had  presented.  Besides,  it  was  intimated  to  me 
that  Professor  G.  Droysen  would  sometime  publish  a 
still  ampler  history  of  his  distinguished  father's  life. 

It  is  a  leflection  upon  our  times  that  such  a  man 
as  Droysen  should  so  soon  even  seem  to  be  forgotten. 
I  say  tliis  notwithstanding  certain  reasons  for  apathy 
toward  him  sfrounded  in  the  nature  and  habits  of  the 
man.  Owing  to  his  intense  application,  and  also  to  his 
sim])le  honesty,  forbidding  in  him  those  arts  by  which 
some  German  professors  are  popular,  Droysen  founded, 


TiiANSLAToi;  s   i'i;i:fa('K.  vii 

properly  speakiiio-,  no  school,  tliougli  several  of  tin; 
German  historians  wlio  earned  fame  during  his  last 
years  and  after  his  death  wciv  liis  j)upils,  inspired  by 
liis  s[)irit  and  ini})r('ssino-  npon  their  works  the  stamj)  of 
his  manner.  Amon^-  these  may  he  mentioned  Griin- 
hagen,  of  Breslau,  who  has  written  so  well  on  the  first 
two  Silesian  AVars  ;  Reinhold  Koser.  of  Berlin,  who  has 
edited  several  volumes  of  the  Political  Correspondence 
of  Frederick  the  Great ;  and  S.  Isaacsohn,  author  of  the 
excellent  Geschichte  des preussischen  Bcamtenthumn.  Of 
these  Koser  is  perhaps  the  ablest,  though  (iriinhagen  is 
famous  for  his  fairness.  In  this  he  excels  Droysen,  who 
was  often  too  controversial  and  always  too  favorable 
to  Prussia.  But  not  one  of  these  younger  historians 
so  much  as  approaches  the  master  in  that  wonderful 
wealth  and  control  of  materials  exhibited  by  him  in  his 
Creschichte  der  preussischen  Politik. 

The  "  Outline  "  as  it  appears  in  English  is  in  certain 
points  somewhat  more  than  a  reflex  of  the  original. 
In  those  paragraphs  of  Droysen's,  and  they  are  not 
few,  which  he  so  painfully  abbreviated,  leaving  them 
hardly  more  than  strings  of  catch-words  for  lecture-room 
amplitication,  the  statements  have  been  carefully  pieced 
out  into  a  fullness  that  will,  it  is  hoped,  give  them  clear 
meaning.  For  the  Greek,  Latin,  French,  and  Italian 
with  which  the  author  loved  to  interlard  his  discoui-se, 
English  has  in  most  cases  been  substituted,  the  origi- 
nal l)eing  given  either  in  brackets  or  in  the  margin.  A 
few  brief  explanatory  notes  have  been  added  at  points 
where  they  seem  most  necessary. 

I  consider  Droysen's  Hisfon'k  the  Aveightiest  book  of 
its  size  composed  in  our  century,  weightier  than  any 


Vlll  TRANSLATOR  S    PEEFACE. 

other,  small  ov  great,  save  certain  treatises  ])y  Hegel. 
Yet  I  know  the  present  tendency  of  historical  study 
too  well  to  expect  that  all  the  English  and  American 
historical  scholars  will  read  this  book  who,  in  my  judg- 
ment, would  greatly  profit  by  reading  it.  In  most 
directions  one  finds  a  stronger  zeal  for  the  knowledge 
of  history  than  for  the  understanding  of  history.  We 
are  so  busy  at  gathering  facts  that  no  time  is  left  us 
to  reflect  upon  their  deeper  meanings.  Too  many 
who  wish  to  be  considered  historians  seem  hardly  less 
enthusiastic  over  the  histoiy  of  some  town  pump,  pro- 
vided it  is  "fresh"  and  "written  from  the  sources," 
than  over  that  of  the  rise  of  a  constitution.  Happily 
this  fault  is  less  pronounced  than  it  was.  With  increas- 
ing clearness  is  it  seen  that  history  is  rationally  inter- 
esting only  as  man's  life  is  interesting,  and  that,  touching 
man's  life,  the  element  in  which  one  may  most  legiti- 
mately feel  deep  interest  is  its  moral  evolution.  This 
is  emphatically  Droysen's  view,  and  in  the  "  Outline  " 
he  sets  it  forth  in  a  more  inspiring  and  convincing 
manner  than  is  done  by  any  other  writer  whom  it  has 
been  my  privilege  to  read.  May  this  translation  enable 
many  to  derive  from  his  profound  conceptions  even 
more  profit  than  they  have  brought  me. 

E.  BENJ.  ANDEEWS. 
Brown  University, 
September  6,  1892. 


AlTlIOirs     PUKFACE. 


Lectures  upon  the  Eiu-yclopfMlia  and  Metluxlology 
of  IIist(U-y  which  1  delivered  from  time  to  time,  begin-  /^, 
ning  with  1857,  led  me  to  write  out  the  skeleton  of 
the  same  in  order  to  give  my  auditors  a  basis  for  my 
oral  amplification.  In  this  way,  as,  manuscript,  lirst  in 
1858  and  tlien  again  in  1802,  the  following  "Outline" 
was  printed.  Numerous  requests,  some  of  them  from 
foreign  lands,  determined  me,  when  the  little  volume 
had  to  be  printed  anew,  to  give  it  to  the  pid>lic.  Hin- 
drances and  scruples  of  many  kinds  have  delayed  the 
publication  until  now,  when  at  last,  according  to  my 
provisional  judgment  at  any  rate,  the  work  is  ri[)e. 

To  the  tii-st  impression,  in  order  to  give  a  general 
idea  of  the  questions  discussed  in  the  body  of  the 
work,  I  had  i)refixed  an  introduction.  This  still  stands 
at  the  beginning.  A  couple  of  articles  are  appended 
to  the  treatise,  which  will,  I  trust,  serve  to  illustrate 
certain  points  touched  therein.  The  first,  entitled 
"The  Elevation  of  History  to  the  Rank  of  a  Science,"  /y 
was  occasioned  by  the  appearance  of  Buckle's  well- 
known  wOrk,  and  printed  in  von  Syljel's  "  Zeitschrift " 
for  1852.  The  second,  on  ''Nature  and  History,"  w;i8  AZ 
evoked  bv  a  discussion  in  which  all  the  advantagfes  of 
the  metaphysical  point  of  view  were  on  my  opponent's 
side.  In  the  third  article,  under  the  title  of  "Art  and 
Method,"  I  have  collected  what  is  hardly  more  than  a 


X  AUTHOR  S    PKEFACE. 

succession  of  aphoristic  remarks,  intended  to  Ining  to 
memory  the  partly  forgotten  limits  between  dilletantism 
and  science.  Some  of  them  have  already  found  place 
in  an  academic  lecture.  See  the  3Ionatsberifhte  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  July  4th,  1867.  I  hesi- 
tated whether  or  not  to  add  a  fourth  discussion,  some 
copies  of  which  I  had  printed  as  an  introduction  to  the 
second  part  of  my  "History  of  Hellenism"  in  1843. 
I  wished  on  the  basis  of  this  to  investigate  with  scienti- 
fic friends  precisely  this  problem  of  the  principles  of 
history,  a  problem  from  which  the  point  of  view  be- 
tween theology  and  philology  held  by  me  in  the 
History  of  Hellenism  and  branches  of  learning  related 
thereto,  seemed  to  me  to  derive  justification.  This 
discussion  I  have  preferred  to  postpone,  because  it  ap- 
peared unlikely  that  readers  would  be  as  much  inter- 
ested as  myself  in  knowing  the  point  whence  I  set  out 
and  the  roads  I  traveled  to  reach  the  conclusions 
presented  in  the  following  pages.  The  purpose  of 
this  publication  will  be  attained  if  it  serves  to  incite 
further  inquiry  into  the  questions  which  it  treats, 
touching  the  nature  and  task  of  History,  its  method 
and  its  competency. 

Berlin,  November,  1867. 


PKEFACE  TO  THE  TIIIIU)  EIlITION. 


Ix  tliis  new  impression  of  the  ''Outline"  the  armnu^e- 
ment  has  been  in  some  })oints  altered,  into  a  form  whieh 
repeated  delivery  of  the  lectures  indicated  iis  better 
answcriuo-  my  purpose.  In  the  somewhat  numerous 
para^iajjhs  which  have  double  figures,^  those  in  brackets 
refer  to  the  order  in  the  editions  of  18()7  and  1875. 

The  "  ( )utline  "  itself  makes  it  clear  that  it  does  not 

pretend  to  be  a  "  Philosophy  of  History,"  and  also  why   *-'^ 

it  does  not  look  for  the   essence   of  History   in   that    /y 

which    has    opened   so    splendid   a   career    to    natural 

science. 

JOH.  GUST.   DKOYSKX. 
Bi:i!r.iN,  July  is,  ISSI. 

1  Not  repi'oduced  in  this  translation.  —  Tr. 


BTOGRArHirAL  SKETCH. 


JOHANN  GUSTAV  DROYSEN. 

l>v  L)k.   .IIei;ma.\.v  Ki:lm;ek. 

Ox  the  morning  of  June  10,  1884,  in  the  ViUa  at 
Seliiineheig,  near  Berlin,  Avliither  he  had  removed  upon 
medical  advice,  died  Johann  Gustav  Droysen,  in  whom 
Germany  lost  one  of  its  he.st  men  and  one  of  its  greatest 
historians.  To  the  author  of  these  lines,  a  grateful 
pu})il  of  his,  it  is  no  less  a  necessity  of  the  heart  than 
a  duty  of  piety  to  lay  a  crown  of  honor  u[)on  tliis  man's 
grave. 

Let  us  hegin  l)y  briefly  sketching  the  outward  course 
of  Droysen's  life. 

Bom  on  the  6th  of  July,  1808,  at  Treptow,  on  the 
Rega,  as  son  of  a  minister,  and  early  left  an  orphan, 
he  ol)tained  his  preparation  for  the  univei-sity  at  the 
Marienatift-G-ymnamim  in  Stettin.  He  then  studied 
philology  in  Berlin,  and  o])tained  there  his  first  position 
as  teacher,  in  the  (lymnasium  of  the  Gray  Cloister.  In 
1833,  having  already  published  some  studies  in  the 
domain  of  (Ireek  history,  he  habilitated  as  privat-docent  /( 
at  the  Berlin  Univei"sity,  where  he  delivered  philological 
and  liistorical  lectures  with  great  acceptance,  and  also 
advanced  very  soon  to  the  position  of  professor  extra- 
ordinary. In  1840  he  accepted  a  call  to  l^ecome 
ordinary  (full)  professor  of  history  in  the  University  of 
Kiel,  where  he  worked  with  great  success  till  1851.  At 
the  same  time  he  took  an  influential  part  as  a  politician 


xvi  BIOGEAPHIC^VL   SKETCH. 

in  the  agitations  to  which  dnring  the  forties  the  popula- 
tion of  Schleswig-Holstein  had  recourse  in  view  of 
Denmark's  threat  to  take  possession  of  these  duchies  by 
force.  In  1848  Droysen  was  sent  from  Kiel  b}^  the 
provisional  government  of  the  duchies  as  their  repre- 
sentative to  the  Diet  of  the  Confederation,  and  later 
as  deputy  to  the  German  National  Assembly. 

In  the  year  1851  Droysen  was  called  to  the  University 
of  Jena,  to  which  he  belonged  as  one  of  its  first 
ornaments  through  the  eight  following  years.  From 
there  he  accepted  in  1859  a  call  to  the  University  of 
Berlin,  where  he  had  begun  his  academic  career,  and 
where  from  this  time  on  for  another  quarter  century 
he  wrought  with  a  success  Avhich  was  great  and  which 
continued  to  the  last.  His  lectures  were  among  the 
most  frequented  at  the  university.  Particularlj^  those 
upon  modern  history  drew  together  in  his  auditorium, 
besides  numerous  students,  also  many  high  civil  and 
military  officers  and  many  savans.  For  Droysen  was 
not  merely  an  eminent  savant  and  historical  investigator, 
but  also  an  extraordinary  teacher. 

As  savant  and  historian  he  published,  from  every  one 
of  the  universities  to  which  he  successively  belonged, 
one  or  more  works  which  have  exalted  his  name  as 
among  the  most  Inilliant  in  the  scientific  world. 

To  his  first  Berlin  period  belongs  the  translation  of 
^schylus  that  appeared  in  1832,  which  Droysen,^ 
as  a  young  philologist,  also  as  an  enthusiast  for 
the  most  powerful  among  tlie  Greek  dramatists,  — 
undertook  at  first  in  tlie  interest  of  a  friend  not 
adequately  acquainted  with  the  Greek,  and  only  subse- 
quently gave  to   the   press.     His   appreciation   of  the 


JOHANN    UUSTAV    DKOYSKN.  xvii 

Greek  nature,  his  poetic  endowment,  and  liis  unusual 
mastery  of  the  speech,  begot  by  their  union  a  traiLshition 
wliich  stands  forth  masterful  in  its  kind  and  has  not 
IxHMi  sur[)assed  even  to  this  day.  To  be  sure,  tlie 
phih)h)g'ists  of  *•  strict  ol)servance  '  most  violently  attacketl 
this  free  poetic  imitation,  which  is  tiuc  rather  to  the 
spirit  and  thoughts  of  the  writer  than  to  the  letter. 
But  Droysen  was  not  drawn  astray.  Convinced  that 
he  who  will  bring  a  Greek  poet  like  yEschylus  or 
Aristophanes  pleasurably  to  the  undei-standing  of  a 
German  reader  must  utterly  renounce  the  litei-al  mode 
of  rendering,  he  immediately  followed  Avith  his  trans- 
lation of  Aristophanes.  This,  like  that  of  ^schylus, 
speedily  found  the  favor  of  the  public  and  has  kept 
it  even  to  our  own  days. 

I>t)th  ti'anslations,  on  which  Droysen,  as  is  proved  by 
the  rendering  of  certain  verses  and  the  change  of 
various  expressions,  has  been  working  right  along,  exist 
now  in  third  editions.  What  power  they  have  to  afford 
high  satisfaction  and  delight  even  to  the  most  rigid 
philologists,  the  writer  of  these  lines  learned  when, 
during  his  time  in  Lei[)zig,  he  listened  to  the  exposition 
of  the  Knights  of  Aristophanes  by  Ritschl,  and  more 
than  once  heaid  that  eminent  critic  express  his 
admiring  approval  of   Droysen's  vei"sion. 

Meantime  there  unfolded  itself  in  Droysen,  side  by 
side  with  his  philological  genius,  still  more  emphatically 
the  talent  and  the  inclination  for  historical  investigation 
and  exposition;  and  having  once  pressed  his  way  into 
the  sphere  of  Iltdlenic  things,  he  saw  in  the  thorough 
investigation  of  (Jrecian  antiquity  the  principal  tiusk  of 
his  scientific  callincr.     A  fruit  of  these  Hellenic  studies 


XVlll  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

was  the  History  of  Hellenism,  begun  in  Berlin,  finished 
later  in  Kiel,  to  which  work  of  several  volumes  the 
History  of  Alexander  the  Great  serves  in  a  way  as 
introduction.  'It  is,'  says  the  author  in  his  preface, 
'  a  highly  significant  yet  almost  forgotten  development 
of  political  and  national  relations  which  we  have 
endeavored  to  fathom  and  expound.'  The  result  was 
a  satisfactory  presentation  of  an  epoch  till  then  little 
known,  yet  highly  important,  —  wherein,  amid  the 
violent  and  often  confused  struggles  of  Alexander's 
generals  and  successors,  those  diadochi  and  epi<jo7ii.,  the 
Greek  spirit  was  brought  into  connection  with  the 
Oriental  nature,  so  as,  by  a  process  of  fermentation,  de- 
composition, and  illumination,  to  cause  a  mighty  trans- 
formation in  the  thinking  and  feeling  of  the  ancient 
world,  by  which,  withal,  the  path  was  leveled  for 
Christianity.  Droysen  apprehends  his  problem  from 
elevated  jDoints  of  \new  and  solves  it,  bringing  clearness 
into  the  tangled  chaos  of  overpowering  material,  with 
undeniably  great  dexterity.  Leo,  in  his  Universal 
History,  names  this  work  '  an  excellent  treatment  of  the 
subject.'  Upon  this,  too,  however,  sharp  attacks  were 
not  wanting,  and  they  were  partly  well  founded.  For 
Droysen,  still  at  that  time  a  thorough  Hegelian,  had  in 
his  handling  of  the  epoch  allowed  quite  too  much  play 
to  the  Hegelian  method  of  constructing  history,  thus 
thrusting  much,  particularly  respecting  Alexander  and 
his  plans,  into  incorrect  perspective  and  false  lights. 
Subsequently  he  saw  this  himself,  and  in  the  preface  to 
the  second  edition  of  this  work,  with  the  perfect  honor 
peculiar  to  his  character,  he  confessed  his  error. 


JOHANN    CJLSTAV    DIMJYSEN.  xix 

Here  in  Kiel,  Avlieic  Dioysen  completed  his  remark- 
able work,  the  lliatory  ot"  Hellenism,  he  completed  also  //, 
his  transition  from  ancient  to  modern  history.  In  1846  ilf/J^ 
he  ])nl>lislu'd  his  lectni-es  on  the  History  of  the  Wai-s  //, 
for  Freedom.  In  an  ingenious  manner,  with  an  almost 
perfect  art  of  luminous  construction  and  rich  coloring 
in  liis  presentation,  such  as  he  equaled  nowhere  else  in 
his  works,  that  period  so  excessively  abounding  in 
struggles,  transformations,  developments,  and  results,  is 
unfolded  and  depicted  in  speech  that  is  fresh,  resonant, 
often  out  and  out  ravishing.  Whoever  wishes  a  per- 
fectly clear  consciousness  of  the  tlitterence  between 
the  born  and  schooled  historian  and  the  dilettante^  should 
compare  this  History  of  the  Wans  for  Freedom,  which  for  //^ 
a  long  time  has  not  in  our  judgment  been  sulhciently 
api)reciated,  with  lieitskes  much  lauded  work  upon 
the  same  period.  Although  in  many  parts  left  l)ehind 
by  more  recent  investigations,  this  work  of  Droj-sen's 
still  presents  such  a  fullness  of  spirited  remaiks  and 
incisive  historical  observations,  that  the  perusal  of  it 
even  affords  genuine  enjoyment. 

A  second  work  which  Droysen  begun  at  Kiel  but 
finished  later  in  Jena,  was  the  famous  Iiiogra])liy  of 
Field  Marshal  York  of  Wartenburg,  at  present  in  its 
ninth  edition.  To  say  anything  at  so  late  a  day  in 
praise  of  this  book,  which  in  its  classic  completeness 
stands  forth  simply  unique  in  biographical  literature, 
would  be  carrying  owls  to  Athens.  We  will  only 
remark  that  although  the  occasion  for  the  composition 
of  the  book  Avas  an  outward  one,  Droysen  nevertheless 
seized  upon  it  with  joy,  in  the  conviction  that  in  that 
lax  period    of    peace   nothing  was  better  adapted    to 


XX  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

strengthen  the  people's  patriotic  and  moral  conscious- 
ness than  the  example  of  a  great  i)ersonality  like  York, 
energetic,  yet  ruled  hy  the  most  rigid  sense  of  duty. 
The  portrayal  of  this  hero's  character  was  especially 
intended  to  be  an  example  to  strengthen  in  the  simple 
service  of  duty  the  young  Prussian  army,  exposed  in 
its  long  and  often  tedious  garrison  life  to  the  danger  of 
laxity. 

It  was  in  the  time  of  deep  political  excitement 
and  exhaustion  which  naturally  followed  the  stirring 
period  of  the  later  forties,  when  Droysen  began  his 
labors  at  Jena.  A  condition  of  almost  entire  discourage- 
ment had  come  in  as  to  the  vigorous  reconstruction  of 
Germany.  The  national  dreams,  wishes  and  strivings 
lay  upon  the  ground  like  a  sea  of  Ijlossoms.  Droysen 
understood  this  general  despair  but  did  not  sliare  it.  It 
was  his  irrefraofable  conviction  that  althouo-h  this  first 
attempt  to  erect  the  German  Empire  again  had  failed, 
it  would  be  followed  by  others,  and  that  at  last,  pro- 
vided Prussia  would  only,  in  proper  recognition  of  her 
historical  calling,  brace  herself  up  to  an  energetic  policy, 
the  loosely  connected  German  states  would  unite  under 
her  lead  into  a  firm  whole,  and  thus  realize  after  all  the 
perpetual  dream  of  a  new  German  Empire. 

Borne  on  by  this  firm  hope  and  conviction,  Droysen 
began  his  colossal  work,  the  History  of  Prussian  Policy, 
the  first  volume  appearing  in  1855.  In  this  path-break- 
ing work,  which  furnishes  evidence  no  less  of  the 
author's  unwearied  lust  for  toil  than  of  his  prodigious 
power  for  toil,  Droysen  introduces  us  into  the  history 
of  the  origin  of  the  Prussian  state,  and  shows  how  this 
state,  amid  perpetual  struggles  with  inner  and   outer 


•  lolIANN    (iUSTAV    DKoYSKN.  xxi 

fliniciilties,  with  labor  iiiost  inluusc  and  eit'uils  often  in 
vain,  in  ever  new,  energetic  onsets,  toiled  its  way  up, 
furtliered  and  utilized  all  the  powei"s  necessary  for  the 
subsistence  and  i)rosperity  of  the  modern  state,  so  as  at 
last  to  enter,  a  German  state  witli  full  credi'iitials,  into 
the  rank  of  Europe's  great  powers.  A  prodigious  plen- 
itude of  material  from  the  ai-chives  was  for  the  iirst  time 
wrought  into  form  and  puhlished  in  this  work.  In  eon- 
sequence,  many  views  previously  accepted  as  certiiin 
have  l)een  given  up,  some  facts  place<l  in  new  lights, 
and  much  else  brought  to  the  day  as  absolutely  new. 

However,  this  e[)och-making  work,  which  we  i)eruse 
now  in  thirteen  thick  volumes,  will  hardly  prove 
l)opular  in  the  sense  in  which  Mommsen's  Roman  ## 
History,  for  instance,  or  Ranke's  History  of  the  Hefor-  '• 
mation,  has  become  so.  Such  a  result  is  prevented  not 
only  by  the  great  compass  of  the  treatise  but  more  than 
all  l)v  the  circumstance  that  it  does  not  piesent  a  history 
of  the  Prussian  state,  cmbi-acing  and  unfolding  in  richly 
colored  view  the  entire  breadth  and  manifoldness  of 
the  state's  life,  but  simply,  ji.s  the  title  says,  a  history 
of  Prussia's  '•policy,'  to  follow  out  which  in  its  pro 
gressive  realization  of  exalted  ideals  is  for  one  not  an 
liistorian  often  wearying. 

We  may  regret  that  Dro3'sen  did  not  choose  to  write 
a  comprehensive  history  of  the  Prussian  state  ;  we  ' /• 
may  blame  him  for  falling,  in  this  work  too,  here  and 
there,  though  less  frequently  than  before,  into  the 
Hegelian  halnt  of  historical  construction ;  yet  the 
History  of  Prussian  Policy  remains  forever  a  standard 
treatise,  path-breaking,  foundation-laying,  epoch-mak- 
ing.    No    subsequent  historian   having  to  explore  the 


XXU  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

same  domain,  will  be  permittetl  with  impunity  to  slight 
Droysen's  laboi-s.  That  the  author  was  awarded  for  it 
b}'  the  scientific  commission  appointed  to  make  the 
awai'd,  the  great  prize  of  a  thousand  Thalers  founded 
by  Frederick  William  IV,  to  be  given  every  five  years 
for  the  best  historical  work  appearing  during  the  same, 
was  only  the  proper  recognition,  of  the  astonishing 
industry,  great  critical  acumen  and  scientific  thorough- 
ness characterizing  the  elaboration  of  this  work ;  a 
work  which  insures  Droysen  for  all  time  the  glory  of 
being  reckoned  among  Germany's  most  remarkable 
historians.  It  encLs,  at  present,  with  the  account  of 
the  first  two  Silesian  wars.  On  the  basis  of  private 
information  which  has  come  to  me  to  the  effect  that 
the  remainder  was  found  in  his  desk  ready  for  the 
press,  quietly  and  peacefully  closed,  as  what  he  wished 
to  give  to  the  public,  we  may  cherish  the  hope  that  a 
fourteenth  volume  will  follow,  bringing  us  to  the  begin- 
nino-  of  the  Seven  Years'  War.^ 

Droysen  has  been  not  only  an  historical  investigator 
especiall}'  favored  of  heaven,  but  also  a  preeminently 
remarkable  teacher  of  history.  He  brought  great 
inborn  talent  to  the  teacher's  calling  ;  yet  this  would 
perhaps  not  have  attained  so  full  activity  had  he  not 
learned  before  his  entrance  upon  his  academic  career, 
namely  as  teacher  at  the  Gray  Cloister,  to  exercise  and 
develop  this  talent  practically  in  minor  relations. 
This  first  period  of  teaching  was  a  decided  advantage 
to  him  in  his  entire  later  activity  as  university  in- 
structor. 

1  This  has  since  been  iniblislied,  and  reaches  to  the  opening  of  the 
Seven  Years'  "War.  —  Tr. 


,I<»1IANN    (irSTAV    DKOVSKN,  xxiii 

Masterly  was  Dioysen's  knack  of  grouping  liis  liis- 
torieal  material  in  his  lectures  so  as  to  render  it  visible 
clearly  and  visil)le  all  together,  and  of  maintaining  the 
essentials  thereof  in  harmonious  relation  with  minor 
historical  details.  The  matter  did  not  press  itself 
upon  the  attention  in  a  too  massive  manner,  nor  on  the 
other  hand  was  it  swamped  l)y  historical  olisei-vations. 
In  his  portrayal  of  given  epochs,  in  his  characterization 
of  towering  personalities,  in  his  delinite  grasp  of  lead- 
ing points  of  view,  he  possessed  the  art  of  a  great 
master.  Yet  to  go  further  and  portray  historical  per- 
sonalities in  their  outward  manifestation,  as  Ranke 
loves  to  do  and  does  in  such  a  hrilliant  manner,  Droysen 
invariably  refused.  'Whether  any  one  has  yellow  hair 
and  blue  eyes,'  he  once  said  derisively,  "  is  a  (question 
on  Avliich  nothing  depends  ;  in  devoting  attention  to 
that  sort  of  thing  an  historian  descends  to  miniature 
painting.'  It  would  certainly  have  been  welcome  to 
many  of  his  hearei"s  and  readei>5  if  he  had  not  so 
completely  renounced  this  means  of  concrete  represen- 
tation. 

Droysen  held  3'ou  spell-bound  in  his  lectures,  which 
moved  upon  the  middle  line  between  free  uttemnce 
and  literal  delivery  from  manuscript.  He  did  this  by 
his  splendid  diction,  by  his  sharp  and  ingenious  exposi- 
tion, by  his  extraordinaiy  art  of  letting,  at  tlie  right  time 
and  place  and  often  only  by  a  brief,  hint-like  remark,  a 
surprising  blaze  of  light  flash  upon  sjiecial  personali- 
ties. Great  also  was  the  effect  of  the  powerful,  maidy 
spirit  which  got  expression  in  all  these  ways. 

Hence  Droysen's  lectures  could  not  but  convoke 
a  great  company  of  listeners.     They  did  this  even  to 


XXIV  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

liis  last  days,  although  other  and  ^'•ounger  lights  with 
equally  great  power  of  attraction  later  arose  at  his  side 
as  colleagues.  To  hear  Droysen  was,  as  one  often  heard 
said,  a  delight,  and  for  the  sake  of  this  delight  many  of 
his  hearers  neglected  taking  notes.  Yet  any  one  who, 
like  the  undersigned,  in  spite  of  the  great  temptation 
merely  to  listen,  consistently  })racticed  taking  notes, 
knows  how  durable  and  precious  a  treasure  he  possesses 
in  a  Heft  written  down  from  Droysen's  deliverances. 

But  what  so  permanently  chained  his  pupils  and 
made  them  hearken  to  their  teacher's  words,  almost  as 
if  in  worship,  and  what  drew  them  ahvays  again 
straight  to  his  lectures,  was  at  bottom,  if  I  see  rightly, 
Droysen's  peculiar,  mighty  personalit}-,  which,  with  its 
powerful  tendency  to  the  ideal,  had  its  roots  deep  in  the 
moral.  Such  a  personality  ever  exercises  upon  academic 
youth,  so  susceptible  to  the  ideal,  an  irresistible  magical 
effect,  not  to  be  undervalued.  For  the  best  that  a 
teacher  who  is,  besides,  an  ethical  personality,  can  give 
to  his  pupils,  is  and  remains  in  the  last  analysis, 
himself.  This  is  as  true  in  a  certain  sense  of  the 
university  teacher  as  of  any.  Droysen  was  a  personality 
full  of  high  moral  earnestness,  and  he  always  energet- 
ically asserted  even  in  his  lectures  the  point  of  view 
of  the  moral  judgment.  'The  moral,'  so  he  expressed 
himself  on  one  occasion, '  is  that  which  constitutes  every 
man's  final  worth,  that  is,  his  only  worth.'  Hoav  much 
sympathy  he  has  therefore  (compare  the  first  volume  of 
the  History  of  Prussian  Policy)  with  Henry  VII,  of 
Luxemburg,  and  how  little  for  the  talented  Talleyrand 
in  his  utter  frivolousness  !  Not  rich  talent,  or  preeminent 
genius   with   its    egoistic  tendency,  but  unselfish  sur- 


JOHANN    (JUSTAV    DIIOVSKN.  XXV 

render  to    the    idea  of    the    g'ood,  lu;  viewed  as  alone 
wortliy  of    respect   and    achniration.      'What,' he  once 
asked, 'is  the  truly  g-reat  in  history ?     It  is  controlled,        /^ 
ennohled,  t>lorificd  passion ';   hut  yet,  so  it  reads  further 
in  his  Principles   of    History,  'everything    historically      /^, 
great  is  only  a  sun-mist  in  the  manifestation  of  God.' 

Not  in  the  sphere  of  the  Greek  world  —  as  jieople 
have  supposed,  and  as  TIans  Prntz  has  again  recently 
asserted  and  emphasized  in  the  N(tt'to)uil-ZeitHnu  —  not 
in  the  sj)liere  of  the  Greek  woild  did  Droysen's  moral 
view  of  the  univei-se  have  its  loots,  Imt  in  the  soil  of 
Christianity.  In  his  thought  the  develo])nient  of 
humanity  —  whose  preparatory  stages  he  characterizes  jis 
recognition  of  self  and  recognition  of  the  world  (see  his 
Princi[)les  of  History')  —  completes  itself  in  the  recogni-  f^* 
tion  of  (iod.  History  itself  is  to  him  'not  the  light  and 
the  truth  hut  t)nly  a  witness  and  a  conservation  of  them,,  fr 
a  sermon  upon  them;  as  John  wjis  not  himself  the  Light 
but  sent  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light.'  The  warmth 
and  luminousness  of  this  deep  moral  view  streamed  out 
through  his  lectures,  although  it  was  not  Droysen's 
manner  to  rei)eat  or  to  express  it  in  deliiiitely  formu- 
lated utterances  or  propositions. 

During  his  exuberant  activity  Droysen  delivered  over 
two  hunch'ed  courses  of  lectures,  before  assemblies 
always  numerous,  of  academic  youth.  They  embraced 
as  well  ancient  as  modern  and  the  most  recent  history. 
Besides,  he  lectured  over  and  over  again  upon  the 
Encyclopedia  and  ^Methodology  of  History.  This  *^ 
coui-se  presented  an  infinite  abundance  of  instructive 
and  inspiring  matter,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  the  under- 
signed,    was    for    the    prospective    historian    simply 


XXVI  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

indispensable.  Perhaps  not  too  strong  was  the  recent 
assertion  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  course  like  that 
of  Droysen's  on  the  Encyclopedia  of  History  will  ever 
be  delivered  again  by  any  university  teacher. 

Man}^  placed  his  course  of  lectures  on  Greek  history 
il  i  at  the  head.  This  certainly  combined  Droysen's  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  the  ancient  Avorld  with  his  deep 
understanding  of  Greek  affairs,  his  sympathetically 
reproductive  sense  for  Greek  thinking  and  action,  and 
for  the  changing  forms  of  Greek  political  life  and 
of  Greek  national  art,  in  such  wise  as  to  render  it  a 
highly  interesting  and  instructive  course.  What 
Droysen  presented  was  not  mere  dry  information,  that 
pains  had  hunted  up  and  collected;  but,  supported 
by  the  thorough  and  many-sided  knowledge  that  he  had 
won  by  long  years  of  study,  he  reconstructed  from  the 
fullness  of  his  living  vision  the  Greek  world  in  its 
political  and  social  development,  in  its  aspects  of  light 
and  shade,  in  its  rise  and  its  decadence. 

Years  after,  there  came  back  to  me  a  vivid  recollection 
of  those  lectures.  I  was  temporarily  residing  in  Berlin 
and  was  taking  a  walk  with  Droysen  in  the  Thiergarten 
one  fine  August  evening.  It  was,  if  I  mistake  not, 
in  the  summer  of  1877.  Our  conversation  led  to  the 
contests  of  the  diadoehi,  and  from  these  back  to 
Alexander  and  Demosthenes.  Knowing  Droysen's  derog- 
atory judgment  of  the  statesman  Demosthenes,  I  found 
it  easy  by  an  utterance  of  a  contrary  tenor  to  evoke  his 
contradiction  and  to  lead  him  on  to  a  fundamental 
justification  of  his  view.  In  speech  that  was  all  life  and 
motion  Droysen  now  not  only  unfolded  in  the  most 
various  directions  an  astonishing  abundance  of  ready 


JOHANN   GUSTAV   DROYSEN.  XXvii 

information,  but  swept  forwards  and  backwards,  with  so 
deep  a  grasp  of  Greek  relations,  that  a  wish  more  lively 
than  ever  came  over  my  soul :  Oh  that  this  man  had 
chosen  to  think  out  a  Greek  history  for  us  I  Oh  that  ,  /' 
he  in  preference  to  so  many  others  had  been  called 
to  fill  u[)  this  painful  gap  so  long  felt  I 

Still  larger  than  Droysen's  classes  in  ancient  history  /^  /j 
were  those  which  heard  him  upon  modern  and  the 
most  recent  periods.  The  lectures  upon  the  latter  were 
of  even  more  univei"sal  interest  than  the  others.  In 
tliem  he  took  his  hearei-s  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  on  to  the  fifties  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, setting  down  and  maintaining  as  landmarks  to 
his  separate  but  continuous  lectures  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  the  Seven  Years'  War,  the  Wai-s  for  Freedom, 
and  the  Revolutionary  time  of  1848  with  its  proxi- 
mate results.  These  lectures  bore,  like  the  othei-s,  a 
thorouglily  sjjirited,  inspiring  and  at  the  same  time 
strongly  scientific  character  ;  but  they  had  an  incom- 
parably greater  practical  effect  upon  the  immediate 
present,  many  securing  through  the  deeper  understiind- 
insT  which  these  lectures  afforded  of  (xerman  history,  5 
a  better  insight  into  the  i)resent  and  its  tasks,  so  tliat 
the  power  of  the  political  shibboleth,  which  especially 
in  the  fii-st  half  of  the  sixties  dominated  so  much  the 
miLsings  and  iispirations  of  our  youth,  Wiis  more  and 
more  broken. 

It  is  equally  true  that  Droysen  extremely  seldom 
allf)wed  himself,  near  as  the  temptation  often  lay,  an 
allusion  to  present  political  revolutions,  and  when  he 
did  indulge  it  was  done  in  a  brief  and  definite  word. 
Thus,  once,  in  the  winter  of  1804,  when  tlie  constitu- 


XXVlll  BIOGRArHICAL    SKETCH. 

tional  conflict  was  at  its  height,  he  closed  a  lecture  with 
these  words  :  '  It  was  the  curse  of  this  party  that  it, 
precisely  like  our  party  of  progress  to-day,  ended  by 
placing  party-interest  above  interest  in  the  Fatherland.' 
In  consequence  of  this  concluding  utterance,  his  entire 
academic  audience,  which  was  then  in  great  part  feeling 
the  touch  of  progressist  breath,  became  excited.  The 
students  determined,  against  the  next  evening,  should 
Droysen  in  his  customary  brief  reca})itulation  again  be 
guilty  of  a  remark  so  deeply  injurious  to  progressist 
feelings,  to  raise  the  cry  of  'scandal'  and  to  make  an 
infernal  racket.  Apprised  of  this  plot,  Droysen  came 
on  the  following  evening  into  the  large  auditorium, 
this  time  full  even  to  suffocation,  ascended  the  platform 
with  easy  step,  and,  glancing  over  the  assembly  with  a 
firm  look  out  of  his  large  dark  eyes,  began  :  '  We  con- 
cluded yesterday  evening,  gentlemen,  with  the  words' : 
and  then  followed  exactly  the  final  words  of  the  pre- 
ceding lecture.  All  was  silent ;  not  a  person  stirred. 
Every  one  had  the  feeling  that  he  who  stood  upon  that 
platform  Avas  a  man. 

As  in  his  lectures,  Droysen's  special  talent  for  teach- 
ing showed  itself  also  in  the  historical  society  con- 
ducted by  him,  whose  members  assembled  around  him 
every  Saturday  in  his  study.  The  reading  of  the  paper 
that  had  been  prepared  on  the  assigned  theme  was 
followed  by  a  debate,  Droysen  leading,  in  which  he,  in 
a  fashion  open  and  free  yet  of  extreme  forbearance, 
criticised  what  had  been  presented,  and  therel)y  set 
forth  the  method  of  historical  investigation  in  a  manner 
at  once  thorough  and  inspiring.  His  efforts  progress- 
ively to    form    his    pupils    to    scientific,    independent 


JOHANN    GUSTAV    DIJOYSEN.  XXIX 

investigations  and  undertakings,  had  great  and  endur- 
ing support  in  his  alnlity  (quietly  and  surely  to  lind 
his  way  into  every  one's  individuality. 

During  the  time  of  conflict  in  the  sixties,  when, 
among  othei-s,  his  colleague,  Herr  von  Sybel,  fought 
boldly  in  the  ranks  of  the  then  party  of  progress  against 
Bismarck  and  the  Prussian  government,  Droysen  de- 
clined i)arti(ipation  by  speech  or  writing,  and  only  occa- 
sionally indicated  liis  position,  which  was  not  that  of  the 
opposition.  Subsequently,  too,  when  those  great  events 
and  transformations  leading  to  the  erection  of  the 
national  state  Avere  taking  place,  he  greeted  them 
ratlier  with  silent  joy  than  with  loud  acclaim,  and,  in 
general,  the  older  he  grew,  he  held  himself  more  and 
more  aloof  from  tlie  political  contests  of  the  day,  in 
order  by  silence  and  solitude  to  live  more  entirely  in 
his  scientific  labors. 

Yet  Droysen,  too,  had  his  time  in  which  duty  and 
conscience  seemed  to  command  him  to  come  forward 
publicly  with  a  manly  word.  It  was  during  his  i)eriod 
of  lal)(»r  at  Kiel.  The  decrees  of  the  provisional 
estates-assembly  held  at  Roeskild  in  the  year  1844, 
threatened  the  rights  of  the  duchies,  Schleswig  and 
Holstein,  and  would  have  l)een  dangerous  bad  the 
Danish  crown  followed  them.  Tliese  acts  called 
Droysen  into  the  political  arena.  He  composed  what 
has  become  celebrated  as  the  'Kiel  Address,'  which  met 
with  a  stoim  of  approval  and  was  instantly  covered 
with  thousands  of  sukscriptions.  As  in  this  wiiting, 
so  siibse(iiu*ntly,  in  a  second,  namely  when  Frederick 
VII  announced  the  consolidated-constitution  of  Den- 
mark.   Droysen   came   out   witli    noble   manliness,   and 


XXX  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

glowing  tlirough  and  throngh  with  patriotic  wrath,  in 
opposition  to  Danish  arrogance.  'What  business,'  a 
passage  of  it  reads,  '  has  Denmark  with  us  ?  What  we 
with  Denmark?  We  have  no  mind  for  any  price  what- 
ever to  be  guilty  of  treason  to  ourselves  and  to  Ger- 
many.' 'Heed,'  he  further  warns  the  Danes,  'heed  the 
evolving  time.  Disdain  ye  what  we  have  spoken,  fill 
ye  the  king's  ear  Avith  adverse  counsel  and  your  heart 
with  the  unrighteous  plunder ;  ^  then  see  to  it  what 
sort  of  advice  ye  are  giving  yourselves  !  We  are  the 
wards  of  a  great  people,  a  great  Fatherland.' 

Droysen's  intervention  in  this  patriotic  way  for  the 
cause  of  the  duchies  in  those  evil  days,  his  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  relations  in  question,  and  his  sharp 
political  vision,  specially  qualified  him  to  represent  the 
cause  of  the  duchies  elsewhere  as  well.  He  was  there- 
fore sent  by  the  provisional  government  subsequently 
established,  as  its  confidential  agent  to  the  Diet  of  the 
Germanic  Confederation  at  Frankfort.  When,  then,  in 
consequence  of  that  movement  which  shook  Germany 
in  the  spring  of  1848,  the  National  Assembly  convened 
at  Frankfort,  Droysen  was  chosen  to  this  also.  He 
joined  the  so-called  hereditary-imperial  party,  and,  as 
member  of  the  committee  on  the  constitution,  di'ew  up 
its  protocol.  Afterwards,  when  men's  hope-filled 
di'eams  of  a  new,  united  Germany  had  melted  like 
snow,  Droysen,  with  Dahlmann,  E.  M.  Arndt  and 
others,  in  May  1849,  left  the  National  Assembly. 

'Pale  as  a  corpse,'  so  Droysen  once  told  the  story  in 
after  years,  '  Dahlmann  entered  the  hall  in  order  to  set 
his  name  to  the  notification  of  departure.  All  eyes 
1  'GeliehV 


JOHANN    GUSTAV    DltOVSEN.  XXXI 

Aveie  tqton  him.  Deeply  moved  and  scarcely  master  of 
himself,  he  seized  the  pen  and  subscribed.  What  lie 
suffered  was  for  him  notification  of  the  death  of  all 
his  patriotic  hopes.'  Droysen  was  less  destitute  of 
courage,  though  he,  too,  was  bowed  to  the  very  earth. 
Even  in  those  most  evil  days  he  could  not  and  would 
not  let  go  the  hope  of  a  renewal  of  the  German  Empire. 
Henceforth,  as  before,  he  placed  his  entire  reliance  on 
Prussia,  whose  calling  to  advance  to  the  pinnacle  of 
a  newly  united  Fatherland  he  viewed  a«  irrefutably 
demonstrated  by  her  liistory.  J  7. 

As  an  historian  he  conceived  to  be  e(pially  certain  his 
duty  to  stam[)  this  historical  calling  of  Prussia  fast  and 
deep  upon  the  soul  of  the  despairing  race  of  his  days  — 
a  promise,  as  it  were,  of  a  better  future.  He  accord- 
ingly began  that  work  of  his,  i)lanned  in  the  broadest 
style,  the  Histoiy  of  Prussian  Policy.  In  this  he  now  //, 
espied  the  principal  ta«k  of  his  life,  and  to  it  he  hence- 
forth consecrated  liis  entire  strengtli. 

iVfter  his  service  at  Frankfort  Droysen  never  again 
came  forward  as  memljer  of  a  political  Ijody.  It  was, 
we  have  already  remarked,  not  without  hope  in  his 
heart  that  he  bade  farewell  to  Frankfort.  He  had  looked 
upon  the  business  of  the  fii-st  German  parliament  as 
simjdy  a  first,  though  unsuccessful  effort,  to  be  followed 
by  otliei-s  with  happier  result;  and  in  the  all>um  pro- 
vided for  its  members  —  characteristically  enough  of 
his  then  view  of  things  —  he  wrote,  slightly  altering  the 
Vergilian  vei-se  :  Tantae  moliit  erat  Gennanam  rotulere 
gentem!  But  he  would  not  again  accept  a  commission 
to  public  political  activity,  and  he  declined  with 
emphasis  an  election  to  the  parliament  at  Erfurt.   •  Any 


XXxii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

one  who  has  made  such  a  fiasco  as  we  did  at  Frankfort,'  he 
expressed  himself  on  a  hiter  occasion  in  his  open,  honest 
way,  '  ought  to  give  these  things  once  for  all  a  wide 
berth  and  relegate  them  to  other  and  more  artful  hands.' 

However,  in  his  scientific  labors  and  in  pushing  for- 
Avard  his  masterpiece,  he  continually  nourished  his  own 
hope  and  that  of  his  nation.  And  when  the  mighty  events 
of  the  year  1866  announced  the  break  of  a  new  day, 
and  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  the  author  of  these 
lines  again  visited  him  at  his  home,  almost  his  firet 
words,  spoken  with  joyful  confidence,  were,  'Now  the 
movement  will  go  through  and  what  we  have  been  so 
long  striving  for  will  succeed.'  A  few  years  more  and 
he  saw  his  prediction,  boldly  spoken  in  a  time  of 
discouragement,  that  the  Hohenzollern  would  sometime 
take  the  place  of  the  Hohenstauffen,  fulfilled  to  the 
letter.  The  splendor  of  the  Empire,  fresh  from  its 
resurrection,  glorified  the  evening  of  his  declining  life. 

Droysen's  nature  had  the  build  of  genius.  His  ability 
was  many-sided.  To  a  sharp,  deeply  penetrating  intel- 
lect he  joined  a  lively,  mobile  imagination,  along  with  a 
fine  feeling  for  form  and  a  decided  sense  for  the  realities 
of  life  and  for  their  worth.  His  poetic  sensibility, 
which  qualified  him  beyond  many  others  for  the 
translation  of  an  Aeschylus  and  an  Aristophanes,  did  not 
hinder  him  from  becoming  and  remaining,  as  a  pupil  of 
Boeckh's,  likewise  a  philologist  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word.  Full  as  he  was  of  ideal  elevation,  it  was  not  in 
the  circle  of  thoughts  prevalent  in  the  Hellenic  world, 
whose  deep  shadows  he  recognized  beyond  almost  every 
other  historian,  but  in  the  real  sphere  of  Christianity, 
that  he  found    full  and  enduring'  satisfaction  for  the 


.lOllANN    CUSTAV     ]>1:(»VS1:N.  XXMll 

moral  need  of  liis  imtuie.  Oiiee  an  enthusiastic  pupil 
of  Hegel,  he  later  became  a  thorough  connoisseur  and 
atbnii'er  of  Aristotle.  Indeed,  a  decided  inclination  to 
philosophic  thinking  formed  a  strongly-  prominent  feature 
of  his  character.  To  the  end  of  his  days  Droysen 
applied  himself  to  philosophical  studies  with  a  pereist^ 
ence  and  a  thoroughness  hard  to  be  matched  by  any 
modern  historian,  although  the  results  of  this  are  not 
innnediately  manifest  in  his  writings,  unless  we  take 
into  account  his  tendency,  which  increased  with  liis 
years,  toward  abstract  expressions. 

Amid  this  abundance  of  richest  endowment  Droy- 
sen did  not  dissipate  his  power,  but  with  the  vni- 
usual  energy  characteristic  of  him,  was  able  to  limit 
himself  to  the  realm  for  which  it  was  manifest  he  was 
peculiarl}- adapted,  that  of  history.  A  master  in  investi- 
gating details,  a«  is  shown  by  his  minor  but  thoroughly 
clavssical  treatises  upon  Pufendurf,  El)erhard  "Windeck, 
the  Marchioness  of  Bayreuth,  the  Strahlendorf  Opinion, 
and  othei's,  he  was  at  the  same  time  an  historical 
investigator  on  a  larger  scale,  who  never  in  viewing  the 
particular  lost  from  his  eye  its  connection  with  the 
great  whole.  His  innate  drawing  to  Universal  History  //. 
led  him  to  cultivate  departments  farthest  removed  from 
one  another,  the  world  of  antiquity  no  less  tlian  that  of 
the  closing  Middle  Age  ami  modern  times.  Yet  tliese 
different  periods  a})peared  to  him  not  Jis  disconnected 
fragments,  but  j^  an  historic  totality  organically  united. 
This  susceptibility  of  his  for  univei-sal  history,  as  well  // 
as  the  sharpness  and  thoroughness  with  which  he 
investigated,  and  equally  with  these  the  great  variety 
of  his  scientific  works,  assure  to  Droysen  for  all  time 


XXXIV  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

his  place  among,  the  Coryphcei  of  German  historians, 
putting  him  among  moderns  in  immediate  connection 
with  Ranke.  And  he  is,  indeed,  so  far  as  I  have 
observed,  as  yet  the  only  historian  whom  any  one,  as 
Professor  Maurenbrecher  essayed  to  do  in  discussion 
some  years  ago  —  has  ventured  to  compare  with  Ranke. 
The  relation  between  these  two  great  historians,  who 
for  years  worked  side  by  side  at  the  same  university, 
was  unfortunately  not  the  best.  The  causes  of  this 
may  here  so  much  the  better  be  left  unexplained,  in 
that  the  undersigned,  to  tell  the  truth,  is  unable  clearly 
to  assign  the  ultimate  reason  for  the  phenomenon. 
Meanwhile  let  us  all  the  more  rejoice  —  remembering 
a  word  from  Goethe  —  in  the  fact  that  we  can  call  two 
such  men  with  their  mighty  creations  forever  'our  own.' 
The  aged  Ranke  still  ^  works  away  with  the  strength 
of  youth  upon  his  Universal  History,  for  whose  com- 
pletion all  adherents  and  admirers  of  this  great  his- 
torian heartily  wish  him  undiminished  mental  as  well 
as  bodily  freshness.  Droysen,  some  thirteen  years 
younger,  to  the  great  pain  of  his  numerous  pupils 
and  reverers,  is  much  earlier  than  many  expected  re- 
moved from  temporal  scenes.  With  a  constitution  ten- 
der on  the  whole,  Droysen  long  ago  felt  his  power  de- 
clining, and  nothing  but  the  great  energy  with  which 
he  bore  up  in  spite  of  increasingly  morbid  conditions 
made  it  possil^le  for  him  to  continue  his  lectures  till 
just  l)efore  last  Whitsuntide.  Even  three  days  before 
this  festival  he  delivered  in  his  customary  manner  his 
carefully  elaborated  paper  in  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
a  member  of  which  he  had  l)een  for  years. 

1  July,  1H84.     llanke  died  on  May  2;5,  1880. 


JUHANN    GUSTAV    DliOYSKN.  XXXV 

Only  a  little  while  before  his  end,  upon  the 
pressing  advice  of  his  i)hysician,  he  saw  himself  neces- 
sitated to  announce  by  a  notice  upon  the  blackboard 
a  cessation  of  liis  lectures  for  that  Semester.  He  was 
destined  never  to  resume  them.  His  strength  sank 
rapidly.  His  children  hurried  anxiously  to  his  side, 
to  ease  by  their  devoted  and  loving  care  the  last  days 
of  their  fatlier,  who  since  the  death  of  his  dearly  loved 
second  wife  had  been  alone.  Meantime  his  weakness 
increased,  unconsciousness  alternating  with  conscious- 
ness. Once  more,  however,  four  days  Ix'Tori!  liis  end, 
Droysen's  strong  love  for  work  came  back,  lie  had 
himself  canied  to  his  writing-desk  and  liis  pen  handed 
him.  I)ul  llic  iingers  that  had  so  often  guided  it  now 
refused  the  service.  Deeply  moved,  Droysen  laid  down 
the  pen,  teai-s  streaming  from  his  eyes.  He  knew  it 
now  ;  he  wsis  at  the  goal.  He  proceeded  to  arrange 
everything  with  care,  even  in  respect  to  his  fuiu'ral. 
On  the  evening  of  June  iHth  the  shadows  of  death 
sank  down  around  liim  deeper  and  deeper.  But  yet, 
clear  to  the  last,  he  had  for  every  tender  service  of 
love,  bringing  it«  brief  alleviation,  its  transient  coolness 
to  the  heated  head,  a  mild,  friendl}-  smile  of  thanks. 
Thus,  surrounded  by  the  faithful,  ministering  love  of 
his  children,  he  fell  softly  and  calmly  aslee}). 

Wind  and  clouds  now  play  over  the  spot  which  con- 
ceals what  of  Droysen  was  mortal  :  but  the  breath  of 
immortality  also  sighs  above  that  grave  and  sweeps 
withal  through  the  works  which  he  created. 

II<iri\   pid    iiiiiiiKi. 

1)H.   IlKRM.   KHiGEK. 
H<)I.ti;xii.vi;i;n,  .Inly,  1884. 


OUTLINE 


THE  rrjNnrT.ES  of  history. 


Outline  of  the  Principles  of  History. 


No  one  will  witliliold  from  historiciil  studies  the 
recognition  of  having,  like  others,  their  place  in  the 
living  scientific  movement  of  our  age.  New  historical 
discoveries  are  busily  making,  old  beliefs  are  examined 
afresh,  and  the  results  presented  in  appropriate  form. 

But  if  we  demand  a  scientific  raison  d"  etrc  for  these 
studies,  if  we  wish  to  know  their  relation  to  other 
forms  of  human  knowledge,  and  the  underlying  reason 
why  they  take  the  course  they  do,  they  are  not  in  con- 
dition to  give  satisfactory  information. 

Not  that  they  regard  themselves  logically  above  such 
questions,    or   incompetent   to   solve   them.     Now   and 
tluMi  ail  attemi)t  has  been  made   to  do  this,  the  solution 
having  l)een    sometimes    jtut    forward    within   the  very 
circle  of  historical   studies,   sometimes   borrowed  from 
other  branches  of  learning.      By   some   the   history  of     -/'• 
the  world  is  assigned  a  i)lace  in  the  Encyclopedia  of   '  /  <y 
Philosophy.      Writers  of  a  different  teiideney,  skeptical 
about  logical   necessities,   all    the    more    eonfideiitly  on 
this  account  reeoiiinu'iid   us  to  develop  liistor}'  out  of    'V>  '' 
material   conditions,    out   of   the    figures   put   down    in 
statistics.     Another,  and  he  only  expresses  in  the  form 
of  a  theory  what  men  without  number  are  thinking  or 
have  thought,  (piestions  the  very  existence  of  -so-called      l/i/, 
history.^     'Peoples   exist   purely  in  the  abstract;   the  rLO-- 

3 


% 


(/•iW 


4  JOHANN    GUSTAV   DROYSEN. 

, ;  y"        individual  is  the  real  thing.     The  history  of  the  world 

is  strictly  a  mere  accidental  configuration,  destitute  of 

metaphysical  significance.'     Elsewhere,    pious   zeal  — 

pious,  of  course,  more   in  appearance  than  in  reality, 

^^       insists  upon  substituting  the  miraculous    workings  of 

/JJ      God's   power  under  his  unsearchable   decree,   for  the 

.  ^^       natural  causal  connection  of  human  things,  a  doctrine 

having  this  advantage,  at  least,  that,  being  stated,  it  is 

under  no  further  indebtedness  to  the  understanding. 

Within  the  sphere  of  historical  studies,  even  so  early 

as  the  close  of  the  Eighteenth  Centuiy,  the  Gottingen 

school  of  that  day  had  busied  itself  with  these  general 

questions  ;   and  they  have  been  handled  afresh  from 

time  to  time  ever  since.     Writers  have  undertaken  to 

//'•*•'/    show  that  history  is   '  essentially  political  history,'  and 

^'i'^^that  the  many  sorts  of  elementary,  auxiliary  and  other 

sciences  belonging  to  our  department  group  themselves 

.^//..-.around  this  kernel.     Then  the  essence  of  liistory  has 

,^^        '  been    recognized    as    consistinof   in    method,   and   this 

l!/y'        characterized  as  a  '  criticism  of  the  sources,'  as  a  setting 

forth  of  the  '})ure   fact.'     Others  have  found  the  de- 

finitive  task  of  our  science  in  artistic  exjjosition,  'the 

l/\         work  of  the  historical  artist,'  and  even  celebrate  as  the 

'■^         greatest  liistorian   of  our  time   him  whose   exposition 

approaches  nearest  to  Sir  Walter  Scott's  romances. 

The  historical  sense  is  too  active  in  human  nature 
not  to  have  been  forced  to  find  its  expression  early, 
and,  wherever  conditions  were  fortunate,  in  appropriate 
forms  ;  and  it  is  this  natural  tact  which  points  out  the 
way  and  gives  the  form  to  our  studies  even  at  the 
present  time.  But  the  pretensions  of  the  science 
could  not  be  satisfied  Avith  tliis.     It  must  make  clear 


PRENCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  5 

to  itself  its  aims,  its  means,  its  foundations.  Only 
tluis  can  it  exalt  itself  to  the  lieiglit  of  its  task  ;  only 
thus,  to  use  expressions  from  Bacon,  can  it  set  aside 
the  preconceptions  now  governing  its  procedure,  the 
idols  of  tlie  theatre,  tribe,  forum  and  den,  for  whose 
maintenance  just  its  powerful  interests  are  active  now 
as  once  interposed  in  favor  of  astrology,  of  lawsuits 
against  witches,  and  of  belief  in  pious  and  impious 
witchcraft.  I>y  thus  becoming  conscious,  history  will 
make  good  its  jurisdiction  over  an  incomparal)ly  wider  -^ 
realm  of  luunan  interests  than  it  is  likely  or  possible 
that  the  science  should  master  otlierwise. 

The  need  of  attaining  clear  conceptions  touching  our 
science  and  its  prol)lem,  every  instructor  wlio  hiis  to 
introduce  youth  into  the  study  will  feel,  just  as  I  have, 
tliough  others  will  have  found  out  how  to  satisfy  it  in 
a  different  manner.  I  for  my  part  was  urged  to  such 
investigations  especially  by  a  sort  of  questions  which 
are  usually  passed  over  l)ecause  in  our  daily  experience 
they  seem  to  have  Ix-en  solved  long  ago. 

The  political  events  of  to-day,  to-morrow  belong  to\ 
history.     The  business  transaction  of  to-day,  if  of  con-  \^^/U 
T^      sequence  enough,  takes  rank,  after  a  generation,  as  a 
',       piece  of  liistory.      How  is  it  that  these  mere  affaii-s  tur: 
into  history 'M  What  criterion  is  to  determine  whethe 
tliey  l>ecome  liistory  or  not ?  The  contract  of  purchase 
concluded  totlay  l)etween    private  individuals,  —  is  it 
the  thoiLsand  yeai-s  that  transfomis  it  into  an  historical 
document  ? 

Every  one  declares  history  to  l)e  an  important  means 
of  culture  ;  and  in  the  education  of  totlay  it  certainly 
1  Geschdfte  into  Geschichte. 


w 


m 


6  JOHAXN    GUSTAV    DROYSEN. 

is  a  weighty  element.     But  why  is  it  thus  ?  In  what 

form  ?  Did  not  history  render  the  same  service  to  the    f^ 

'*7(//     Greeks  of  the  age  of  Pericles?  To  be  sm^e  the   form 

V     was    different    then,  —  probably   that  of   the    Homeric 

J  Songs.     And   how    can    national   poems   have    had  to 

Greeks  and  to  Germany  under  the  Hohenstauffen  the 

educational  value  of  historical  instruction? 

Observation  of   the    present   teaches    us   how,  from 
different  points  of  view,  every  matter  of  fact  is  differ- 
ently   apprehended,    described     and    connected    with 
others  ;  how  every  transaction  in  private  as  well  as  in 
public    life    receives  explanations  of  the  most  various 
kinds.      A    man    who    judges    carefully   will    find    it 
difficult  to  gather  out  of  the  plenitude  of  utterances 
so    different,    even  a  moderately  safe    and   permanent 
picture  of  what  has  been  done  and  of  Avhat  has  been 
purposed.     AVill    the    correct    judgment    be   any  more 
certain  to  be  found  after  a  hundred  years,  out  of  the  so 
soon  lessened  mass  of  materials  ?  Does  criticism  of  the 
sources  lead  to  anything  more  than  the  reproduction  of 
views  once  held?  Does  it  lead  to  the  'pure  fact? '         ^ 
And  if  such  querying  is  possible  as  to  the  '  objective  ' 
content  of  history,  what  becomes  of   historical  truth  ?  / 
Can    history  be    in   any  sense    characterized    by  truth  ( 
without  being  correct?  Are  those  right  who  speak  of 
historj^  in  general  as  a  fable  agreed  upon  ?  A  certain    '^' 
natural  feeling,  as  well  as  the  undoubting  and  agreeing 
judgment  of  all  times  tells  us  that  it  is  not  so,   that 
there    is    in    human    things  a  unity,  a  truth,  a  might, 
which,  the  greater  and  more  mysterious  it  is,  so  much 
the  more  challenges  the  mind  to  fathom  it  and  to  get 
acquainted  with  it. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  7 

Right  here  another  list  of  (questions  presented  itself, 
questions  touching  the  rehition  of  this  potency  in  his-  ^Qf 
tory  to  the  individual,  touching  his  position  between  JJ' 
this  and  the  moral  potencies  wliich  bear  him  on  and 
bring  him  to  self-realization,  toudiing  his  duties  and 
his  highest  duty;  considerations  leading  far  beyond  the 
immediate  comjjass  of  our  study,  and  of  course,  con- 
vincing us  that  the  problem  b^-  them  presented  was  to 
be  investigated  only  in  its  most  general  connections. 
Could  one  venture  to  undertake  such  investigation 
with  only  the  circle  of  information  and  attainments 
that  grow  out  of  the  historian's  studies?  Could 
these  studies  presume,  a^s  the  studies  of  nature  have 
done  with  so  splendid  a  result,  to  make  themselves 
their  own  foundatiori  ?  One  tiling  was  clear  :  that  if 
the  historian,  with  his  merely  historical  cognizance  of 
what  philosophy,  theology,  the  oljservation  of  nature, 
etc.,  have  wrought  out,  was  to  take  hold  of  these 
ditticult  problems,  he  nuist  have  no  inclination  to 
speculate,  but  must  in  his  own  empirical  Avay  jjroceed 
fi'om  the  sim[)le  and  solid  basis  of  what  has  been  done 
and  disc(nered. 

I  found  in  William  von  Humboldt's  investigations 
the  thought  wliich,  so  I  believed,  opened  the  way  to  a 
sort  of  a  solution  to  these  problems.  He  seemed  to  me 
to  Ixj  for  the  historical  sciences  a  Bacon.  We  cannot 
speak  of  a  philosophical  system  of  Humboldt's,  but 
what  the  ancient  expression  Jiscrilxjs  to  the  greatest  of 
historians,  'political  undei-standing  and  the  power  of  l-"^ 
inter]i)retation,' ^  these  he  possessed  in  remarkable  har- 
mony.     His  thinking,  his  investigations,  likewise  the 


8  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DEOYSEN. 

wonderful  knowledge  of  the  world  won  through  that 
active  life  of  his,  led  him  to  a  view  of  the  world  Avliieli 
had  its  centre  of  giavit}^  in  his  own  strong  and 
thoroughly  cultivated  sense  of  the  ethical.  As  he 
traced  out  the  practical  and  the  ideal  creations  of  the 
human  race,  languages  in  particular,  he  became  ac- 
(piainted  with  the  at  once  spiritual  and  sensuous  nature 
of  the  race,  as  well  as  with  the  perpetually  creative 
power  which,  as  men  mutually  impart  and  receive, 
belongs  to  the  expression  of  this  nature;  these,  the 
nature  and  the  power,  being  the  two  elements  in  wliich 
the  moral  world,  producing,  so  to  speak,  ever  new 
electric  currents  in  ever  new  polarizations,  moves  by 
creating  forms  and  creates  forms  l)y  moving. 

It  appeared  to  me  possible  by  the  aid  of  these 
thoughts  to  pierce  deeper  into  the  question  of  our 
science,  to  explain  its  problem  and  its  procedure,  and, 
from  a  true  recognition  of  its  nature,  to  develop  in  a 
general  way  its  proper  form. 

In  the  following  paragraphs  I  have  endeavored  to 
do  tins.  They  have  grown  out  of  lectures  delivered 
by  me  upon  the  Encyclopedia  and  Methodology  of 
History.  My  aim  has  been  to  give  in  this  "  Outline  " 
a  general  view  of  the  whole  subject,  and  to  hint  at 
particulars  only  so  far  as  seemed  necessary  to  make 
clear  the  sense  and  connection. 


IXTPvODUCTION. 


L  — HISTUKY. 


^ 


§  1. 

Nature  and  History  are  the  widest  conceptions  under 
which  the  human  mind  ap})rehen(Ls  the  world  of  phe- 
nomena. And  it  apprehends  them  tlius,  according  to 
the  intuitions  of  time  and  space,  which  jn-esent  them- 
selves to  it  as,  in  order  to  comprehend  them,  it  analyzes 
for  itself  in  its  own  way  the  restless  movement  of 
shifting  phenomena. 

Objectively,  phenomena  do  not  separate  themselves 
according  to  space  and  time  ;  it  is  our  ajjprehension 
that  thus  distinguishes  them,  according  as  they  appear 
to  relate  themselves  more  to  space  or  to  time. 

The  conceptions  of  time  and  s])ace  increase  in  defin- 
iteness  and  content  in  the  measure  in  which  the  side- 
by-side  chai-acter  of  that  wliich  is  and  the  successive 
charact€r   of   that   which   has   become,    are  perceived,) 
investigated  and  undei"stood. 

§2. 
The  restless  movement  in  the  world  of  phenomena 
causes  us  to  apprehend  things  as  in  a  constant  develop- 
ment, this  transition  on  the  part  of  some  seeming 
merely  to  repeat  itself  periodically,  in  rase  of  othei-s 
to   supplement    the    repetition    with    ascent,    addition, 

9 


/  - 


10  JOHANX    GUSTAV    DKOYSEN. 

ceaseless  growth,  tlie  system  continually  making,  so  to 
speak,  '  a  contribution  to  itself.'  ^  In  those  phenomena 
in  which  we  discover  an  advance  of  this  kind,  we  take 
the  successive  character,  the  element  of  time,  as  the 
determining  thing.  These  we  grasp  and  bring  together 
as  History. 

§3. 

To  the  human  eye,  only  what  pertains  to  man  appears 
to  partake  of  this  constant  upward  and  onward  motion, 
and  of  this,  such  motion  appears  to  be  the  essence  and 
the  business.  The  ensemhle  of  this  restless  progress 
upward  is  the  moral  world.  Only  to  this  does  the  ex- 
pression 'Ilistiiry'  lind  its  full  application. 

§4. 

The  science  of  History  is  the  result  of  empirical 
perception,  experience  and  investigation,  laropia.  All 
empirical  knowledge  depends  upon  the  '  specific  energy ' 
of  the  nerves  of  sense,  through  the  excitation  of  which 
the  mind  receives,  not  '  images '  but  signs  of  things 
Avithout,  which  signs  this  excitation  has  brought  before 
it.  Thus  it  develops  for  itself  systems  of  signs,  in 
which  the  corresponding  external  things  present  them- 
selves to  it,  constituting  a  world  of  ideas.  In  these 
the  mind,  continually  correcting,  eidarging  and  build- 
ing up  its  world,  finds  itself  in  possession  of  the 
external  w^orld,  that  is,  so  far  as  it  can  and  nuist  possess 
this  in  order  to  grasp  it,  and,  by  knowledge,  will  and 
formative  power,  rule  it. 

1  fTTiSoo-is  ei's  avTo.     Aristotle,  de  anlma,  II,  5,  7.     Appendix  II  at  the 
end  of  tliis  "Ontline"  is  an  aniplitication  of  §§  1  and  2  here. 


I'KINCII'LKS   (»F    msroKV,  11 


§5. 
All  ('iii[)iriral  iiivestip^ation  <i^ovenis  itself  aecortliiig 
to  tlu'  (lata  to  wliicli  it  is  diicrtcd,  and  it  can  only 
diret't  itscdt'  to  such  data  iis  are  inimediatcly  present  to 
it  and  susceptible  oi  being  cognized  tlirough  the  senses. 
'J'he  data  for  historieal  investigation  are  not  piu>t  things, 
for  these  have  disappeared,  but  things  which  are  still 
present  here  and  now,  whether  recollections  of  what 
Avas  done,  or  renniants  of  things  that  have  existed  and, 
of  events  that  have  occurred. 

§6. 

Every  jxuut  in  the  present  is  one  which  has  come  to 
be.  That  which  it  was  and  the  manner  whereby  it 
came  to  be,  —  these  have  passed  away.  Still,  ideally 
its  past  character  is  yet  present  in  it.  Only  ideally 
liowever,  as  faded  traces  and  suppressed  gleams 
Apart  from  knowledge  these  are  as  if  they  existed  not 
Oidy  searching  vision,  the  insight  of  investigation,  is 
able  to  resuscitate  them  to  a  new  life,  and  thus  cause 
light  to  shine  back  into  the  empty  darkness  of  the  jjast. 
Yet  what  Ijecomes  clear  is  not  past  events  as  pas' 
These  exist  no  longer.  It  is  so  much  of  those  past 
things  as  still  abides  in  the  now  and  the  here.  These 
quickened  traces  of  past  things  stand  to  us  in  the 
stead  of  their  originals,  mentally  constituting  the 
'present'  of  those  originals. 

The  finite  mind  possesses  only  the  now  and  the  here. 
But  it  enlarges  for  itself  this  poverty-stricken 
narroAvness  of  its  existence,  forward  by  means  of  its 
willing  and  its  hopes,  backward  through  the  fullness  of 


^ 


12  JOHANN    GITSTAV    DIIOYSEN. 

its  memories.  Tims,  ideally  locking  together  in  itself 
both  the  future  and  the  })ast,  it  possesses  an  experience 
analogous  to  eternity.  The  mind  illuminates  its 
present  with  the  vision  and  knowledge  of  past  events, 
^  which  yet  have  neither  existence  nor  duration  save  in 
and  tlu'ough  the  mind  itself.  '  Memory,  that  mother  of 
Muses,  Avho  shapes  all  things,'  ^  creates  for  it  the  forms 
and  the  materials  for  a  world  which  is  in  the  truest 
sense  the  mind's  own. 

§7. 

I  It  is  only  the  traces  which  man  has  left,  only  what 
man's  hand  and  man's  mind  has  touched,  formed, 
stamped,  that  thus  lights  up  before  us  afresh.  As  he 
goes  on  fixing  imprints  and  creating  form  and  order,  in 
every  such  utterance  the  human  being  brings  into 
existence  an  expression  of  his  individual  nature,  of  his 
'  I.'  Whatever  residue  of  such  human  expressions  and 
imprints  is  anywise,  anywhere,  present  to  us,  that 
speaks  to  us  and  we  can  understand  it. 

11.  -THE    HISTORICAL    METHOD. 

§8. 

The  method  of  historical  investigation  is  determined 
by  the  morphological  character  of  its    material.      The 

(essence  of  historical  method  is  tmderstandin(/  by  means 
of  investigation. 

§  9- 

The  possibility  of  this  understanding  arises  from  the 
J   kinship  of  our  nature  with  that  of  the  utterances  lying 

^  /jLvrifx-qv  dirdvTijiv  /j-ovaofxriTop  (pyavrju.  —  jlCschylus,   Prmietheus,  40l\. 


LV= 


^l;^^■cu•LE8  of  histukv.  13 

before  us  as  historical  material.  A  further  condition 
of  this  possibility  is  the  fact  that  man's  nature,  at  once 
sensuous  and  spiritual,  speaks  forth  every  one  of  its 
inner  processes  in  some  form  apprehensible  by  the 
senses,  mirrors  these  inner  processes,  indeed,  in  eveiy 
utterance.  On  being  percei%X'd,  the  utterance,  by  pro- 
jecting itself  into  the  inner  experience  of  the  per- 
cipient, calls  forth  the  same  inner  process.  Thus,  on 
hearing  the  cry  of  anguish  we  have  a  sense  of  the 
anguish  felt  by  him  who  cries.  Animals,  plants  and 
the  things  of  the  inorganic  world  are  understood  by  us 
only  in  part,  oidy  in  a  certain  way,  in  certain  relations, 
namely  those  wherein  tlicse  things  seem  to  us  to  corre- 
spond to  categories  of  our  thinking.  Those  tbjngs 
have  for  us  no  individual,  at  least  no  personal,  exist- 
ence. Inasmuch  as  we  seize  and  understand  them  only 
in  the  relations  named,  we  do  not  scruple  to  set  them  at 
naught  as  to  llieir  individual  existences,  to  dismember 
and  destroy  them,  to  use  and  consume  them.  With 
human  beimjs,  on  the  other  hand,  with  human  utter- 
ances and  creations,  we  have  and  feel  that  we  have  an 
essential  kinship  and  reciprocity  of  nature  :  every  *•  I ' 
enclosed  in  itself,  yet  each  in  its  utterances  disclosing 
itself  to  every  other. 

§  10. 
The  individual  utterance  is  understo(td  as  a  siini)le 
speaking  forth  of  the  inner  nature,  im/olving  possil)ility 
of  inference  backward  to  that  inner  nature.  This 
inner  nature,  offering  this  utterance  in  the  way  of  a 
specimen,  is  undei-stood  as  a  central  force,  in  itself  one 
and  the  same,  yet  declaring  its  nature  in  this  single 
voice,  as  in  every  one  of  its  external  efforts  and  expres- 


^1 


14  JOHAXN    GUSTAV    DKOYSEX. 

sions.     The  individual  is  understood  in  tlie  total, 
the  total  from  the  individual. 


The  person  who  understands,  heeause  he,  like  him 
whom  he  has  to  understand,  is  an  'I,'  a  totality  in  him- 
self, tills  out  for  liimself  the  other's  totality  from  the 
individual  utterance  and  tlie  incUvidual  utterance  from 
fthe  other's  totality.     The  process  of  understanding  is 
/  as  truly  synthetic    as    analytic,   as    truly  inductive  as 
J  deductive. 

§  11. 
From  the  logical  mechanism  of  the  understanding 
process  there  is  to  he  distinguished  the  act  of  the 
faculty  of  understanding.  This  act  results,  under  the 
conditions  above  explained,  as  an  immediate  intuition, 
wherein  soul  blends  with  soul,  creatively,  after  the 
manner  of  conception  in  coition. 

§  12. 
The  human  being  is,  in  essential  nature,  a  totality  in 
himself,  but  realizes  this  character  only  in  understand- 
ing others  and  being  understood  by  them,  in  the  moral 
partnerships  of  family,  people,  state,  religion,  etc. 
I       The    individual    is    only   relatively  a   totality.     He 
I  understands  and  is  understood  only  as  a  specimen  and 
\  expression  of  the  partnerships  whose  member  he  is  and 
I  in  whose  essence  and  development  he  has  part,  him- 
self  being   but    an    expression    of    this    essence    and 
aevelopment. 

The  combined  influence  of  times,  j^eoples,  states, 
religions,  etc.,  is  only  a  sort  of  an  expression  of  the 
absolute  totality,  whose  reality  Ave  instinctively  surmise 
and  believe  in  because  it  comes  before  us  in  our  '  Cogito 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTUKY.  15 

ergo  %um^  that  is,  as  the  cei-tainty  of  our  o^vn  pei"Sonal 
being,  and  tus  the  most  indubitable  fact  which  we  can 
know. 

§  13. 
The  false  alternative  between  the  materialistic  and 
the  idealistic  view  of  the  world  reconciles  itself  in  the 
historical,  namely  in  the  view  to  wliich  the  moral  world 
leads  us  ;  for  the  essence  of  the  moral  world  resides  in 
the  fact  that  in  it  at  every  moment  the  contrast  spoken 
of  reconciles  itself  in  order  to  its  own  renewal,  renews 
itself  in  order  to  its  own  reconciliation. 

§  14. 
According  to  the  objects  and  according  to  the  nature 
of  human  thinking,  the  three  possil)le  scientific  methods 
are  :  the  soeculative,  })liilosophieally  or  theologically, 
the  ]>hvsi(^d,  and  the  historical.  Their  essence  is  to 
find  out,  to  exj^un,  to  undei"stand.  Hence  the  old 
canon  of  the  sciences  :  Logic,  Physics,  Ethics,  which 
are  not  tliree  ways  to  one  goal,  but  the  three  sides  of  a 
prism,  tlirnugli  wliicli  tlie  human  eye.  if  it  will,  may, 
in  colored  reflection,  catch  foregleams  of  the  eternal 
light  wliose  direct  sj)l('n(lor  it  would  not  be  able  to  bear. 

§  15. 
The  moral  world,  ceaselessly  moved  by  many  ends, 
and  finally,  so  we  instinctively  surmise  and  l>elieve,  by 
the  supreme  end,  is  in  a  state  of  restless  development 
and  of  internal  elevation  and  growth,  'on  and  on,  as 
man  eternalizes  himself.*  ^  Considered  in  the  successive 
character  of  these  its  movements  the  moral  world  pre- 

^  Ad  iivti  (til  oni  cnme  riinm  s^eternn.  —  Dante,  Tn/'iriid,   XV,   84. 


16  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DEOYSEN. 

sents  itself  to  us  as  History.  With  every  advancing 
step  in  this  development  and  growth,  the  historical 
understanding  becomes  wider  and  deeper.  History, 
that  is,  is  better  understood  and  itself  understands 
better.  The  knowledge  of  History  is  History  itself, 
^  Restlessly  working  on,  it  cannot  but  deepen  its  investi- 
gations and  In'oaden  its  circle  of  vision. 

Historical  things  have  their  truth  in  the  moral  forces, 
as  natural  things  have  theirs  in  the  natural  'laws,' 
mechanical,  physical,  chemical,  etc.  Historical  things 
are  the  per[)etual  actualization  of  these  moral  forces. 
To  think  historically,  means  to  see  tlieir  truth  in  the 
I  actualities  resulting  from  that  moral  energy. 

III.  — THE   PROBLEM   OF   THIS   "OUTLINE." 

§  16. 

This  Hint  or  ik  or  discussion  of  tlie  Principles  of 
History  is  not  an  encyclopedia  of  the  liistorical  sciences, 
or  a  philosopliy  or  tlieology  of  Jiistory,  or  a  physics  of 
the  historical  world.  Least  of  all  is  it  a  discipline  for 
the  artistic  composition  of  history.  It  must  set  its  own 
problem,  whicli  is  to  l)e  an  organon  of  historical  thinking 
and  investigation. 

§  17. 
Canvass  the  history  of  this  prol)lem  from  Thucydides 
and  Polybius  to  Jean  Bodin  and  Lessing.  The  kernel  of 
the  question  is  in  William  von  Humbolclt's  Introduction 
to  the  Kmvi-lioKjuane.  See  also  Gervinus's  '  Princi])les 
of  History '  [7//.s^or/^],  Comte's  'Positive  Philosophy,' 
Schaffle's  'Structure  and  Life  of  the  Social  Body,'  etc. 


PRINCirLKS    OV    IIISTUKY.  17 

§  18. 

'■Historik''  embraces  three  doctrines:  that  of  method 
for  historical  investigation,  that  of  the  system  beh)nging 
to  the  matter  to  he  historically  investigated,  and  that  of 
the  systematic  presentation  of  the  historical  results. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  METHOD. 

§  19. 

Historical  investigation  presnp[)oses  the  reflection 
that  even  tlie  (;ontent  of  our  '  I  "  is  a  mediated  content, 
one  that  has  heen  developed,  that  is,  is  an  historical 
resnlt  (s^  12.)  Tlie  recognized  means  of  tliis  mediation 
is  meuKuv,  dru/xi'v/fn?.  Our  knowledge  is  at  tirst  a 
something  received,  a  something  Avhicli  has  passed 
over  to  ns,  ours,  yet  as  if  not  ours.  It  is  a  long  step  to 
where  we  feel  ourselves  free  with  this  knowledge,  and 
have  it  freely  at  our  coniniaud.  Out  of  the  totalit}' 
of  that  whieh  \\'i-  thus  fully  possess,  out  of  oitr  appre- 
ciation of  this  'eontent'  as  ours,  and  our  recognition  of 
ourselves  in  it,  there  is  begotten  in  us  (^§  10)  a  new  idea 
of  this  knowledge  as  a  whole,  of  each  part  of  it  and  of 
each  particular  element  in  it.  This  idea  arises  in  us 
involuntarily.  There  it  is  as  a  mattei-  of  fact.  But  is 
the  trutli  ically  as  this  idea  j)i'eseuts  it  to  us?  To  be 
convinced  touching  its  validity  we  must  reflect  U[)on 
the  manner  in  which  it  had  origin  in  us;  we  nmst 
investigates  the  combination  of  means  thidugh  which 
we  come  by  it;   we  nuist   test  it,  make  it  cleai-,  prove  it. 


18  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DllOYSEN. 


I.  _  INVENTION. 

§20. 

The  j)oint  of  departure  in  investigation  is  historical 
interrogation.  Invention  puts  us  in  possession  of  the 
materials  for  historical  work.  It  is  the  miner's  art,  that 
of  finding  and  bringing  to  the  light,  '  the  underground 
work.'i 

§  21. 
Historical  mateiial  is  partly  what  is  still  immediatel}^ 
present,  hailing  from  the  times  which  we  are  seeking  to 
understand  (Remains),  partly  whatever  ideas  human 
beings  have  obtained  of  those  times,  and  transmitted  to 
be  remembered  (Sources),  partly  things  wherein  both 
these  forms  of  material  are  combined  (Monuments). 

§22. 

Amid  the  abundance  of  historical  Remains  may  be 
distinguished : 

(rt)  Works  whose  form  is  due  to  human  agency, — 
artistic,  technical  etc.,  as  roads,  plats  of  leveled  ground, 
and  the  like. 

(h)  Conditions  constituting  w^hat  we  have  spoken 
of  as  the  '  moral  partnerships,'  viz.,  customs  and  usages, 
laws,  political  and  ecclesiastical  ordinances,  and  the 
like. 

(c)  Whatever  sets  forth  thoughts,  items  of  knowl- 
edge, or  intellectual  processes  of  any  kind,  as  philoso- 
phemes,  literatures,  mythological  beliefs,  etc.,  also 
historical  works  as  products  of  their  time. 

1  Njt'bulir. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTOKV.  19 

(^7)  Papers  relating  to  business,  as  correspondence, 
business  bills,  archives  of  all  sort«,  and  other  things  of 
tliis  nature. 

§23. 

Remains  in  the  creation  of  which  the  purpose  of 
serving  the  memory  coftperated  with  other  aims,  such 
as  ornaments,  practical  utility,  etc.,  aic  Abniiiniciits. 
These  include  documents  to  certify  to  posterity  when  a 
piece  of  work  was  concluded,  likewise  all  kinds  of 
works  of  art,  inscriptions,  medals,  and  in  a  certain 
sense,  coins.  Finally  comes  in  every  kind  of  marking 
by  means  of  monuments,  even  the  stone  landmark,  and 
things  as  insigniticant  as  titles,  arms,  and  names. 

§24. 

Under  Sources  belong  past  events  as  human  under- 
standing has  apprehended  them,  shaped  them  to  itself 
and  passed    them  over  to  the  service  of  the  memoiy. 

Every  recollection  of  the  past,  so  long  as  it  is  not 
externally  fixed,  as  in  verses,  in  sacred  fornuda*,  or  in 
written  composition  of  some  kind,  partakes  the  life 
and  the  transformation  of  the  circle  of  ideas  l)elonging 
to  tho.se  who  cherish  it.  Tradition  in  the  Church  of 
Rome  illustrates  this.  The  credil)ility  of  oral  tradition 
is   oidy    quantitatively  different   from  that  of  written. 

Our  Sources  may  grasp  the  subject  either  in  a  pre- 
dominantlv  sul)jective  way,  or  in  the  closest  possible 
accord  with  the  facts,  ••pragmatically.'  To  the  suIh 
jective  order  l)elong  partly  such  Sources  as  i)resent  a 
view  clou<led  by  a  superabundance  of  phantasy  or  of 
feeling,  like  legends,  historical  lyrics,  etc.,  partly  such 
as   use   historical   matter  of   fact  only  a^j  material  for 


20  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DEOYSEN. 

considerations  and  arguments  of  a  different  natui'e,  as 
speeches  in  court,  parliament,  etc.,  documents  relating 
to  public  law,  etc.  The  Prophets,  Dante,  ^Aristophanes, 
etc.,  also  illustrate  Sources  of  this  kind. 

Within  the  '  pragmatic  '  order  of  Sources  we  may  dis- 
tinguish those  which  mostly  im})art  only  isolated  facts, 
from  those  which  classify  more.  In  addition  to  this 
difference  the  aim  with  which  the  facts  were  appre- 
hended will  help  to  determine  the  meaning  of  our 
Sources.  The  apprehension  will  obviously  vary  accord- 
ing as  it  was  intended  to  aid  the  author's  own  memory, 
or  for  others,  for  one  person,  or  a  few,  or  all,  for 
contemporaries  or  for  posterity,  for  instruction,  for 
entertainment,  or  for  purposes  of  business. 

The  so-called  'Derived  Sources'  are  views  of  other 
men's  views. 

§25. 

The  three  species  of  materials  will  vary  in  relative 
value  according  to  the  pui'i)Ose  for  which  the  investiga- 
tor is  to  use  them.  Even  the  very  best  give  him,  so  to 
speak,  only  polarized  light.  By  the  use  of  what  we  have 
termed  Remains,  he  ma}'  with  entire  certainty  penetrate 
to  minor  data,  yes,  even  to  the  very  minutest.  The 
keener  his  sight  in  fathoming  these  deeps  the  more  will 
he  get  out  of  them.  However,  data  of  this  class  form 
but  accidental  and  scattered  fragments. 

In  consequence  of  the  nature  of  its  materials  empiri- 
lU  cal  inquiry  in  history  must  dispense  with  the  great 
helps  which  corresponding  study  in  the  physical  woild 
possesses  in  observation  and  experiment.  Still  the  fact 
that  all  sorts  of  experiments  are  yet  making  in  the 
moral  world  and  under  the  most  thoroufyh  observation, 


PKI^'C1^LES   OF    JII.STOUV.  21 

compensates  historical  investigation  through  the  clear- 
ing up  of  its  obscure  '  x '  by  means  of  analogies. 

§26. 

Historical  Interrogation  results  iu  our  ascertaining 
^\hat  Remains,  Monuments  and  Sources  are  to  l)c 
brouglit  forward  for  the  'reply.'  It  is  the  art  of  liis-  ( 
torical  'investigation'  to  extend  and  complete  tlie  ^ 
historical  material  ;  and  especiall}' :  (a)  by  search  and 
discovery,  as  of  a  diviner;  (h)  by  combination,  whicli, 
l)Utting  tljings  in  their  pro})er  places,  makes  into  mate- 
rial for  history  that  which  appeai-s  not  to  be  such  : 
witness  A.  Kirchoff's  History  of  tlie  Greek  al[)habet ;  //  < 

(c)  b}"  analogy,  which  casts  light  upon  tlie  su])ject 
through  similarities  of  result  under  similar  conditions  ; 

(d)  hy  hypotliesis,  proof  of  wliich  is  evidence  for  the 
event  in  ([uestion.  The  last  would  be  illustrated  by 
the  level  ground  plats  of  the  ancient  German  villages 
as  expressions  of  order  in  the  primitive  community. 

§27. 
'Invention,*  like  each  of  the  parts  of  Historical 
Method  yet  to  be  named,  presupposes  the  continual  co- 
operation of  the  otheix.  For  every  one  of  them  all 
historical  knowledge  and  all  other  related  knowledge, 
whether  philological  or  pertaining  to  general  facts, 
serves  as  an  auxiliary  science. 

II.__ri{ITI('IS.M. 

§  28. 
Criticism    does    not   seek   'the  exact  historical  fact';     _-. 
for  every  so-cidlcd  historical  fact,  apart  from  the  means — 7 


r 


22  JOHANN   GUSTAV   DROYSEN. 

leading  thereto,  and  the  connections,  conditions  and 
purposes  which  were  active  at  the  same  time,  is  a  com- 
plex of  acts  of  will,  often  many,  helping  and  hinder- 
ing, and  acts  of  will  which,  as  such,  passed  away  with 
the  time  to  which  they  belonged,  and  lie  before  us  now 
only  either  in  the  remnants  of  contemporary  and 
related  transformations  and  occurrences,  or  as  made 
known  in  the  views  and  recollections  of  men, 

§  29. 

The  task  of  Criticism  is  to  determine  what  relation 

the    material  still  before  us  bears  to  the  acts  of   will 

whereof  it  testifies.     The  forms  of    the    criticism   are 

determined  by  the  relation  which  the  material  to   be 

investigated  bears  to  those  acts  of  will  which  gave  it 

shape. 

§30. 

(«)  We  must  inquire  whether  the  material  actually 
is  what  it  is  taken  to  be  or  pretends  to  be.  Reply 
to  this  question  is  given  by  '  criticism  of  its  genuine- 
ness.' Proof  of  ungenuineness  is  complete  when  the 
time,  the  origin  or  the  aim  of  the  falsification  is  proved. 
The  thing  so  proved  ungenuine  may  serve  in  some  other 
direction  as  weighty  historical  material. 

One  application  of  the  criticism  of  genuineness  in 
reference  to  a  given  department  is  Diplomatics.  The 
business  of  this  l)ranch  is  the  testing  of  the  genuineness 
of  records  and  other  pieces  of  writing  by  outward  signs, 
in  contrast  with  the  so-called  '  higlier  criticism.' 

§  31. 
(/*)    We    must    also    inquire    whether    the    material 
has  maintained    its   original    and    pretended  character 


PRESrCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  23 

unchanged,  or,  if  not,  what  clianges  are  to  be  recognized 
as  having  occurred  in  it  and  as  therefore  to  be  left  out 
of  account.  This  question  is  answered  in  the  'criticism 
of  earlier  and  later  forms,'  known  as  "diacritical  pro- 
cedure." This  procedure  usually  results  in  the  pointing 
out  of  a  so-called  'development'  from  the  fii-st  form 
to  the  form  before  us.  In  such  a  deinonstration  the 
separated  jtarts  are  nnitually  i'Xi)lanatory  and  confirm- 
atory [Ferdinand  Christian  IJaur]. 

§  32. 

(e)  We  must  inquire,  still  further,  whether  the 
material,  under  the  circumstances  of  its  origin,  did 
or  could  involve  all  that  for  which  it  is,  or  offei"s  itself 
to  be,  taken  as  voucher;  or  whether,  immediately  at 
that  time  and  place,  it  must  not  have  been,  or  may  not 
even  have  proposed  to  be,  correct  only  jiartially, 
relatively  and  in  a  certain  way.  This  question  finds 
answer  in  the  'criticism  of  correctness  or  validity.' 

This  form  of  criticism  must  ask  : 

(1)  Whether,  judged  by  human  exi)erienee,  the  fact 
stated  is  in  itself  possible. 

(2)  Whether  it  is  possible  considering  the  alleged 
conditions  and  circumstances. 

In  both  these  cases  the  criticism  measures,  in  reference 
to  the  objects  or  events  in  question,  both  the  given  view 
itself  and  also  the  correctness  of  this  view. 

(3)  Whether  any  beclouding  of  vision  is  recognizable 
in  the  motives,  aims  or  pei-sonal  relations  of  the  author 
of  the  accovuit. 

(4)  Whether  incorrectness  was  unavoida))le  through 
insuthciency  of  the  means  for  observation  and  forming 
judgment. 


24  JUHANN    GUSTAV    DJtOYSEN. 

In  each  of  these  cases,  (3)  and  (4),  criticism  gauges 
both  the  view  arrived  at  and  its  correctness,  in  the  light 
of  the  process  and  of  the  instrumentality  by  which  the 
view  was  arrived  at. 

§33. 

The  application  of  the  criticism  of  correctness  to 
Sources  is  teclmically  called  '  Source-criticism.'  If  this 
is  understood  only  in  the  sense  of  pointing  out  how  one 
author  has  used  another,  it  is  only  an  occasional  means, 
one  among  others,  its  business  being  to  present  or 
prepare  demonstration  of  correctness  or  incorrectness. 

The  Criticism  of  Sources  distinguishes  : 

(1)  What  a  given  source-document  has  grasped, 
reproduced,  and  now  presents,  as  events,  transactions, 
original  words,  earlier  sources,  etc. 

(2)  What  general  coloring  this  source-document 
received  from  the  circle  of  ideas  prevalent  at  the  time 
and  place  of  its  origin,  for  instance  the  '  demonological ' 
coloring  of  the  fifteenth  century,  or  the  ennui^  as  of 
epigoni^  characterizing  the  Alexandrian  period. 

(3)  What  individual  comjdexion  the  author  himself 
has  in  virtue  of  his  culture,  his  character,  some  special 
tendency,  or  the  like. 

§34 

The  primitive  '  source '  does  not  consist  in  the  dreary 
maze  of  contemporary  opinions,  accounts,  reports.  This 
is  only  the  daily  repeated  atmos})lieric  process  of 
ascending  and  self-precipitating  vapors  from  wliich  the 
true  Sources  or  springs  are  replenished. 

As  a  rule  the  earliest  historical  composition  respecting 
an  event  governs  all  subsequent  tradition.     That  case 


i'i;iNcii'Li:s  OF   iiist<»i;y.  2o 

is  the  most  loituiiato  wlieie  this  coiniiositiou  is  conteni- 
poniiy  with  the  events  which  it  handles;  that  is,  hefoie 
the  effects  pnxhued  l»y  event:^  have  brought  any 
change  of  view  concerning  the  elhcient  facts  and 
persons,  and  l)efore  any  new,  epocli-niaking  event  has 
created  a  different  worhl  of  thouirht. 

§35. 

(<i')  We  nuist  iiKpiire  whether  llic  niali'iial  as  we 
have  it  still  contains  all  tiit^  points  tor  which  the  inves- 
tigation seeks  testimony,  or  in  what  mea.sure  it  is 
incomplete.  This  cpiestion  finds  answer  in  the  critical 
arrangement  of  the  verified  material. 

Always,  or  nearly  always,  we  have  before  us  only 
single  points  out  of  the  facts  as  they  originally  were  ; 
oidy  individual  views  of  what  existed  and  occurred. 
Any  historical  mateiial  has  gaps  in  it,  and  even  the 
most  exact  investigation  is  not  free  from  errors.  The 
measure  of  sharpness  wherewith  these  gap«  and  possible 
erroi-s  are  signalized  is  the  nieasiue  of  the  certainty  of 
our  investigation. 

The  critical  arrangement  is  not  settled  merely  accord- 
ing to  the  j)oint  of  view  of  succe  .sion  in  time,  as  with 
annals.  The  more  manifold  the  points  of  view  from 
which  the  same  materials  are  arranged,  the  larger  is 
the  number  of  solid  points  wliich  the  intei-secting  lines 
will  aft'oid.  The  registei-s  in  the  Corpus  Inscriptionum 
Latinarum  illustrate  this. 

§36. 

The  outi-ome  of  criticism  is  not  'the  exact  historical 
fact.'      It  is  the  placing  of  the  material  in  such  a  con- 


26  JOHANN    GUSTAV   DEOYSEN. 

dition  as  renders  possible  a  relatively  safe  and  eorrect 
view.  The  conscientiousness  which  refuses  to  go 
beyond  the  immediate  results  of  criticism,  makes  the 
mistake  of  resigning  all  further  work  with  these  results 
to  fancy,  instead  of  going  on  to  find  such  rules  for  this 
further  work  as  shall  assure  its  correctness. 


III.  —  INTERPRET  ATIOK 
§  37. 
Beginnings  are  neither  sought  by  criticism  nor  de- 
manded by  interpretation.  In  the  moral  world  nothing 
is  without  medial  antecedents.  Yet  historical  investi- 
gation does  not  propose  to  explain,  in  the  sense  of 
deriving,  as  mere  effects  and  developments,  the  latter 
from  the  earlier,  or  phenomena  from  laws.  If  the 
logical  necessity  of  the  later  lay  in  the  earlier,  then, 
instead  of  the  moral  world,  there  would  be  something 
analogous  to  eternal  matter  and  the  changes  of  matter. 
Were  the  life  of  History  only  a  reproduction  of  Avhat 
is  permanently  identical  with  itself,  it  would  be  void  of 
freedom  and  responsibility,  Avithout  moral  content  and 
only  of  an  organic  nature.  The  essence  of  iiiterpreta- 
tion  lies  in  seeing  realities  in  past  events,  realities  with 
that  certain  plenitude  of  conditions  which  they  must 
have  had  in  order  that  they  might  become  realities. 

§38. 

As  in  walking  are  united  (r«)  the  mechanism  of  the 
moving  limbs,  (?>)  the  tension  of  the  muscles  according 
to  the  evenness  or  unevenness,  smoothness,  hardness, 
etc.,  of  the  ground,  (c)  tlie  will  which  moves  the  body, 


TltlXCirLKS    (IF    HISTOIIV.  27 

and  ('/)  llio  purpose  which  leads  the  person  who  wills 
to  walk,  so  criticism  completes  itself  from  four  points 
of  view.  The  exaltation  of  an}^  one  of  these  as  h}^ 
itself  essentially  or  exclusively  determinative  of  va- 
lidity, is  the  source  of  many  theoretical  and  i)ractical 
eiToi-s.     It  is  doctrinaiie  (§  92), 

§39. 

(«)  '  Prap^matic '  interpretation  takes  up  the  hodv  of 
criticised  facts  according  to  the  causal  nexus  naturally 
binding  together  the  original  events  in  their  course,  in 
order  to  re-construct  this  coui-se  of  events  as  it  once 
actually  was.  By  '  body  of  criticised  facts '  is  meant 
those  remains  and  those  views  of  the  once  actual  coui-se 
of  events  which  have  been  verified  and  arranged  in  the 
work  of  criticism.  In  case  of  plentiful  nu'terial  the 
simple  demonstrative  procedure  is  sufficient.  If  the 
material  is  defective,  the  nature  of  the  thing  as  made 
known  to  us  from  similar  ca^es  leads  us  to  apply 
analogy,  viz.,  a  comparison  between  the  known  (plant ity 
and  the  '  x '  in  question.  The  analogy  between  the 
two  '  x's '  so  far  as  they  are  mutually  sup})lementary, 
yields  the  ^  comparative  pnx'edure.'  The  sui)})Ositi()n 
of  a  connection  in  wliich  the  matter  possessed  b\-  us 
only  in  fragments  displays  itself  as  fitting  into  the 
'  curve '  of  the  assumed  coiniection,  thus  confirminsf 
itself  visibly,  as  it  were,  is  '  hypothesis.'  • 

§40. 

(I'O  The  * inteiiH'etation  of  the  conditions'  proceeds 
upon  the  truth  that  we  must  think  the  conditions  which 
made  the  original  fact  possible  and  })ossible  so  and  so. 


28  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DROYSEN. 

as  a  part  of  the  fact  itself,  and  hence  as  certain  to 
enter,  however  fragmentarily,  into  all  vieAVS  and  rem- 
nants of  the  fact.  Thus  the  position,  in  itself  not 
beautiful,  of  the  Borghese  gladiator  reveals  the  line  of 
the  pediment  for  which  the  statue  was  intended. 

The  conditions  relating  to  space,  omitting  innumer- 
able insignificant  ones,  receive  elucidation  from  details 
like  the  geography  of  a  theatre  of  war  and  of  a  battle- 
field, the  position  of  a  country's  natural  bomidaries, 
the  valley  formation  of  Egypt,  the  marshes  upon  the 
North  Sea,  and  many  more. 

The  conditions  of  time  comprise  that  already  present 
state  of  things  into  which  the  event  in  question  made 
its  entry,  and  the  contenn)orary  events  which  had  a 
more  or  less  determinative  effect  upon  it. 

A  third  order  of  conditions  is  found  in  the  means, 
material  and  moral,  by  which  the  course  of  things  was 
rendered  possible  and  actual.  The  material  means  in- 
clude the  manifold  sorts  of  substances  and  instruments, 
and  along'  with  these  an  innueasuralile  field  of  '•techno- 
logical  interpretation,'  which  thus  far  remains  almost 
untouched.  The  moral  means  include  the  j^assions  of 
men,  the  moods  of  the  masses,  the  prejudices  or  views 
governing  them,  etc.  The  general,  the  statesman,  the 
artist,  who  wishes  to  o})erate  upon  the  masses  and 
througli  them,  has  his  character  in  that  same  measure 
determined  hf  them. 

§  41. 

(c)  '■  IVvcliological__interpretation '  seeks  in  the 
given  fact,  the  acts  of  will  which  produced  it.  Such 
inter] )retation  may  take  cognizance  of  the  subject  who 
willed,  and  of  the  energy  of  liis  volition  so  far  as  this 


PUINCII'LKS    OF    mST()i;V.  20 

influenced  the  course  of  events  under  survey,  and  of 
his  intellectual  force  so  far  tus  tliis  determined  his  will. 
Hut  neither  did  the  subject  of  the  volition  fully  ex- 
haust himself  in  this  one  turn  of  things,  nor  did  that 
Avhicli  came  to  pass  conn;  to  j)ass  merely  through  the 
strcui^-tli  of  this  one  man's  will  or  intelliL'cnci!.  It  is 
neither  the  pure  noi'  the  entire  expression  ot"  iiis  per- 
sonality. 

Personality  as  such  does  not  lind  in  History  tlie  tests  ^i/ 
of  its  value,  in  what  it  undertakes,  does  or  suffers 
there.  To  it  is  reserved  a  circle  of  its  own,  wheiein, 
liowever  poor  or  rich  in  gifts  it  may  be,  signilicant  or 
insi<''niti(ant  in  respect  to  effects  or  results,  it  has  to  do 
with  itscir  and  its  (Jod,  a  circle  of  its  own,  wherein  is 
the  truest  source  of  its  willing-  and  existence,  where 
that  takes  place  which  justilies  or  condemns  it  before 
itself  and  before  (iod.  His  conscience  (  Gctrisi^i'n)  is  the 
most  certain  Q/eivisseste^  thing  which  the  indi\idual 
possesses  ;  it  is  the  truth  of  his  existence.  Into  this 
sanctuary  the  ken  of  investigation  docs  not  j)rcss. 

Human  being  uiulerstands  luinian  iK'ing,  l)ut  oidy 
in  an  external  way;  each  perceives  the  other's  act, 
speech,  mien,  yet  always  only  this  one  deed  or 
feature,  this  single  element.  Prove  that  I  luidcr- 
staud  my  fellow  rightly  or  entirely  I  cannot.  It  is 
another  thing  for  a  friend  to  believe  in  his  friend  ;  or, 
in  a  ca.se  of  love,  for  the  one  party  to  liold  fast  to  the 
other's  image  as  that  other's  true  self:  'Thou  must 
be  so  for  so  I  understand  thee.'  That  sort  of  confi- 
dence is  the  secret  of  all  education. 

The  poets,  as  Shakspere,  develop  the  coui-se  of  events 
which    they   jjresent,   from    the    characters    of    certain 


1 


30  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DKOYSEN, 

persons.  They  poetize  on  to  each  event  a  psj'chological 
interpretation.  Bnt  in  actnal  facts  effects  come 
through  other  elements  than  personalities.  Things 
take  their  course  in  spite  of  the  will,  good  or  bad,  of 
those  through  whom  they  come  to  pass.  The  con- 
tinuity of  History,  its  work  and  its  advance,  lies  in  the 
moral  potencies  (§  15).  In  these  potencies  all  have 
part,  each  in  his  place.  Tlu'ough  them,  mediately, 
even  the  meanest  and  poorest  participates  in  the  life  of 
History.  But  even  the  most  highly  endowed  man, 
strongest  of  will  and  most  exalted  in  power,  is  only  an 
element  in  this  movement  of  the  moral  potencies, 
though  always,  in  his  place,  specially  characteristic  and 
efficient.  In  this  role  and  in  this  only  does  historical 
investigation  view  any  man,  not  for  his  person's  sake 
but  on  account  of  his  position  or  work  in  tliis  or  that 
one  among  the  moral  potencies,  on  account  of  the  idea 
whose  bearer  he  was. 

§42. 

((7)  The  '  interpretation  of  ideas '  tills  up  the  gap 
which  psychological  interpretation  leaves.  For  the 
individual  builds  a  world  for  himself  in  that  measure 
in  wliich  he  has  part  in  the  moral  potencies.  And  the 
more  diligently  and  successfully  he  builds,  in  his  j)lace 
and  for  the  brief  space  of  his  life,  the  more  has  he 
furthered  those  partnerships  in  which  he  lived  and 
wliich  lived  in  him;  and  the  more  has  he  on  his  part 
served  the  moral  potencies  wliich  survive  him.  With- 
out them  man  were  not  man;  but  they  develop,  grow 
and  rise  only  in  the  united  work  of  men,  of  peoples,  of 
times,  only  in  the  progressive  history  whose  develop- 
ment and  growth  is  their  unfolding. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HIRTOIIY.  31 

The  ethical  's\-stem'  of  any  period  is  only  the  gn\,si> 
ing  and  bringing  together  of  the  ethical  life  thus  far 
unfolded;  only  an  attempt  to  sum  it  u[>  and  speak  it 
out  according  to  its  theoretical  content. 

Every  period  is  a  complex  (^f  the  outworkings  of  all 
the  moral  potencies,  liowever  developed  or  rudimentary 
their  unfolding  may  he,  liowever  mucli  the  liigher  may 
still  l»e  veiled  in  tlit;  lower,  as  when  the  State  existed  in 
the  form  of  the  family. 

S  43. 

In  the  great  divei>iit3'  of  tlie  moral  spheres  wherein 
human  life  takes  root  and  moves,  investigation  finds 
the  list  of  questions  with  wliich  it  approaches  any 
given  liistorical  material  in  order  to  interpret  it  as  to 
its  ethieal  content. 

We  can   proeced   in  eitlier  of  two  ways. 

(^f )  We  may  take  a  statical  view,  observing  in  the 
materials  before  us  the  state  of  the  moral  formations  as 
they  existed  at  the  time  in  (piestion  and  up  to  tiiat 
time.  In  this  way  we  get  the  'ethical  horizon'  within 
which  stood  everything  tliat  was  and  was  done  at  this 
period  among  tliis  jx'oph".  We  thus  secure  the  measure 
for  every  individual  process  within  this  period  among 
this  people. 

(/')  Or,  dynamically,  we  may  seek  and  seize  the 
progressive  elements  in  the  given  state  of  moral  foiina- 
tions,  and  by  [tutting  these  into  relation  with  that 
state  to  which  they  have  led  in  acting  themselves  out, 
catcli  sight  of  the  movement  at  that  period  and  among 
that  })eo})le,  the  striving  and  struggling  of  men,  their 
victories  and  defeats. 


32  JOHANN   GUSTAV   DEOYSEN. 


§44. 

In  such  movement  it  is  now  this,  now  that,  among 
the  moral  potencies,  which  takes  the  lead,  and  it  often 
seems  as  if  this  leading  potency  were  alone  involved, 
everything  else  being  subordinate  to  it.  As  the 
thought  of  this  time,  this  people,  this  man,  it  inflames 
men's  minds  and  leads,  dominates  and  impels  society  to 
take  a  step  essentially  forward. 

The  thought  or  the  complex  of  thoughts  which 
inteiyretation  j^oints  out  in  any  course  of  events,  is  to 
us  the  truth  of  that  course  of  events.  The  course  of 
events  is  to  us  the  effect,  the  phenomenal  form,  of  this 
thought. 

Our  methodical  reproduction  of  the  facts  must  by  its 
correctness  enable  the  thought  to  make  good  its  char- 
acter as  underlying  the  course  of  events,  and  the  course 
of  events  to  justify  the  thought.  For  that  thought  is 
to  us  true  to  which  an  existence  corresponds,  and  that 
existence  true  which  corresponds  to  a  thought. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SYSTEM. 

§45. 

^  The  realm  of  historical  method  is  the  cosmos  of  the 
moral  world.  The  moral  world  as  it  sweeps  restlessly 
on  from  past  to  future  every  moment  forms  an  endless 
maze  of  affairs,  circumstances,  interests,  and  conflicts. 
There  are  manifold  points  of  view,  technical,  legal, 
religious,  political,  and  the  like,  from  which  this  moral 
scene    can    be    considered    and    scientifically   handled. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTOUV.  33 

What  goes  on  daily  in  this  moral  world  is  never  done 
or  purposed  by  any  sensible  pei-son  as  history.  It  is  i M 
only  subsequently  that  a  peculiar  way  of  survejang  the 
finished  and  the  past  makes  history  out  of  common 
doings  ( G<'schirJift'  out  of  Geschafte}.  To  apprehend 
the  moral  world  liistorically  means  to  apprehend  it 
according  to  its  development  and  growth,  according  to 
the  causal  succession  of  its  movement  (§  15). 


h  H 


§46. 

The  secret  of  all  movement  or  motion  is  its  endl— ^^^^ 
(to  o6ev  tf  Kivrjai-;).  Inasnuich  as  historical  investigation  ' 
is  directed  to  the  advancing  movement  of  the  moral 
world,  takes  account  of  its  tlirection,  sees  end  after  end 
unveil  and  fulfil  itself,  it  infere  and  concludes  (§  12) 
to  a  supreme  end  wherein  the  movement  completes 
itself,  wlierein  what  makes  this  world  of  men  keep 
moving,  cii'cling  and  eeaselessly  hastening  on  is  seen  to 
be  rest,  consunnnation,  an  eternal  present. 

§47. 

The  human  l)eing  during  his  space  of  life  in  the 
finite  has,  in  virtue  of  his  likeness  to  God,  to  be  an 
infinite  subject,  a  totality  in  liiniself.  his  own  measure 
and  end  ;  but  not  l>eing  like  the  (iodhead  also  a  cau-m 
mi.,  he  has  not  to  become,  unaided,  what  he  ought  to 
be.  Into  his  character  as  a  human  being  he  develops 
only  in  the  moral  pai'tnei-ships.  The  moral  potencies 
form  him  ($  12).  They  live  in  him  and  he  lives  in 
them.  Born  into  an  already  existent  moral  world  — 
for  the  first  child  had  fatlier  and  iiiotlier — thus  l)oni 
to   Ik?   conscious,    free    and    responsible,    each    man    for 


34  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DROYSEN. 

himself  (§  42)  in  these  moral  partnerships  and  using 
them  as  helps,  builds  his  little  world,  the  bee-cell  of 
his  '  I.'  Each  of  these  cells  is  conditioned  and  sup- 
ported by  its  neighbor,  and  in  turn  conditions  and 
supports.  All  together  they  form  a  restlessly  growing 
building,  conditioned  and  supported  by  the  existence 
of  its  minute,  yes,  of  its  minutest  parts. 

§  48. 

By  this  building  and  forming  process  in  its  individu- 
als, developing  as  it  works,  humanity  creates  the  cosmos 
of  the  moral  woild.  Without  the  restless  growth  and 
development  of  its  moral  partnerships,  that  is,  without 
Historyj  its  work  would  be  like  a  mountain  of  infusoria 
shells.  Without  the  consciousness  of  continuity,  viz., 
without  Historv,  its  work  would  be  as  barren  as  a  plain 
of  sand,  the  sport  of  the  winds.  Without  the  conscious- 
ness of  ends  and  of  the  highest  end,  without  the 
/  ^^  Theodicy  of  History,  its  continuity  would  be  a  mere 
motion  in  a  circle,  repeating  itself. 

§  49. 

The  moral  world  is  to  be  considered  historically  : 

I.  In  relation  to  the  Matter  wherein  it  creates  forms.  \  ^f 

II.  In  relation  to  the  Forms   into  which  it  shapes)  ,,Avu 
itself. 

III.  In    relation   to  the  Workers  tln'ough  Avliom  it    ij-ii, 
builds  itself  up. 


IV.    In  relation  to  the  Ends  which  realize  tliemselves  >v 
in  its  movement. 


7 


PRINCIPLES   OF   HISTORY.  55 

I.— THE   WORK   OF  HISTORY   IX   RELATION^    /^^ 
TO   ITS   KINDS   OF   MATTER. 

§50. 

The  Matter  for  the  work  of  History  comprises  what 
nature  ori<,nnally  gave  and  what  History  itself  has  "^^ 
evolved.  Hoth  these  are  at  once  the  condition  and  the 
means  of  this  woik,  at  once  its  hnsiness  and  its  limits 
ation.  The  ceaseless  enlargement  of  the  matter  foi- 
the  woik  is  the  measure  of  the  enlargement  of  tlie 
work  itself. 

§  51. 

(a)  As  man  studies  and  comprehends  nafure,  rules 
and  transforms  nature  to  serve  liuiiiaii  ends,  tlie  work 
of  History  lifts  nature  up  into  the  moral  spliere,  and 
spreatLs  abroad  over  the  circle  of  the  caith  the  signs, 
the  aeriKjo  nohilis  of  human  will  and  power.  Such 
signs  are  discoveries,  inventions,  improvements,  agri- 
culture, mining,  the  training  and  breeding  of  animals, 
changes  prodiu'ed  in  countries  and  landscapes  by  the 
transmigration  of  plants  and  animals,  tlie  eirele  of  the 
sciences,  and  many  others  j)arallel  to  each  of  those 
named. 

§52. 

(h)  The  work  of  1 1 istory  causes  the  mere  creature  ^l7^ 
man,  by  discovering  in  the  sweat  of  liis  brow  what  lie 
ia^lesi^iied  jo  l)e,  to  re;i1J7eJ_his  desimi  and  to  discover 
it  l)y  realizing  it.  Out  of  the  mere  (/enuM  homo  it  thus 
makes  TTiehistorical  man.  which  means  the  moral  man. 
Amplification    of    this    would    invohe    Anthroi)oh>gy, 


26i 


36  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DKOYSEN. 

Ethnography,  the  question  of  races  and  of  the  crossing 
of  races,  the  propagation  of  the  human  race,  and  so  on. 

§  53. 
(«?)  Those  human  formations  which  liave  come  to  be, 
resulting  from  the  work  and  circumstances  of  History, 
are  constantly  becoming  in  their  turn  norm  to  that 
work,  as  well  as  impulse  and  means  to  new  work. 
Hence  the  value  of  statistics.  Hence  the  historian 
must  study  poverty,  commerce,  etc.,  and  all  that  com- 
prises the  so-called  history  of  civilization. 

§  54. 
(f^)  Out  of  the  purposes  of  men  and  the  ardor  or 
passion  with  which  they  surrender  to  these,  ^istory 
forms  her  incentives  and  impelling  forces,  and  produces 
her  massive  effects.  National  spirit,  particularism, 
fanaticism,  rivalries  and  so  on  illustrate  this. 


II.  — THE   WORK   OF   HIST(3E,Y   IN  RELATION 
TO   ITS   EORMS. 

§  55. 
The  Forms  in  which  the  work  of  History  moves  on 
are  the  moral  partnerships,  whose  types,  as  moral  poten- 
cies, are  in  the  heart  and  conscience  of  human  beings. 
'He  who  cannot  enter  into  community  or  who  on 
account  of  his  self-sufificiency  needs  nothing,  is  either  a 
brute   or   a    God.'  ^     In    the   moral  potencies  lies  the 

1  '0  5^  ixT)  dwd/uLfvoi  Koivciiveiv  f)  fiyjS^v  ded/uevos  8l   aiirapKeiav  .   .   .  r]  Orjplov 
^  0€6s  icTTi.  — Aristotle,  Politics  I,  1,  12. 


PRINCn^LES    OF    HISTORY.  37 

educating  might  of    llistorj,  and  every   one  has  part    ^ , 
in  the  life  of  .History  in  the  measure  in  which  he  has    %■ 
part  in  them  (§  41).     Human  relations  are  moral  in 
the  measure  in  which  they  educate;  and  they  educate 
in  the  measure  in  which  the  moral    element  in  them 
is  mighty. 

Eacli  of  these  moral  potencies  creates  its  sphere,  its 
world  for  itself,  shut  up  in  itself,  and  yet  making  the 
demand  on  every  man  to  come  forward  with  it  and 
lal)()r  on  its  belialf,  at  the  same  time  setting  in  activity 
and  working  out  in  it  his  own  moral  worth. 

The  individual  is  not  an  atom  of  humanity,  one  of  tlie 
molecules  \\liicli  laid  too-ether  in  intinite  number  would 
produce  humanity.  He  belongs  to  his  family,  people, 
state,  etc.,  is  a  living  member  only  through  them,  'as 
the  hand  sei)arate  from  the  l)ody  is  no  longer  a  hand.' 

'Hie  doetrin(!  of  native  human  rights  goes  beyond  its 
own  })remises.  It  forgets  that  there  is  no  right  without 
duty,  and  that  a  thousand  kinds  of  obligations  are 
fulfilled  toward  every  individual  before  he  himself  has 
been  able  to  acquire  a  right. 

§66. 

The  partnerships,  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of 
the  human  being,  sjjring  either  from  a  natural  need,  or 
from  an  ideal  one,  or  partly  from  each.  As  moral 
potencies  they  have  a  development  and  a  history  as  well 
in  themselves  as  in  relation  to  other  potencies  and  to 
everything  else. 

§  57. 

A.  In  the  'natural  partiiei'sliii)s '  that  which  is 
natural  has  to  be  made  moral  by  means  of  a  i)rimary 


38  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DROYSEN. 

process  of  will,  by  means  of  love,  fidelity,  duty  etc. 
The  fact  that  among  men  a  partnership  of  soul  issues 
from  a  natural  need,  and  from  mere  impulse  a  life  of 
volition  and  obligation  and  a  permanent  bond,  dis- 
tinguishes the  human  being  from  the  lower  creatures. 

§  58. 
(flr)  The  Faisiily.  —  Here,  in  the  narrowest  space, 
in  the  forms  lowest  down  towards  the  creature,  are 
found  the  strongest  moral  ties,  the  deepest  social  sul> 
structures.  Under  this  rubric  consider,  with  much 
else,  the  gradations  of  marriage  up  to  monogamy, 
paternal  authority,  the  family  liearth,  so-called  patri- 
archal government,  and  l)lood-vengeance. 

§  59. 
(I))  The  Netghborhood.  —  Here  come  into  view 
the  first  develojiments  f)f  friction  in  the  s})atial  colloca- 
tion of  men,  involving  the  foundation  of  the  village 
community  as  a  great  family.  Consider  the  elders, 
the  constituency  of  the  community,  the  various  plots 
of  land. 

§60. 

(c)  The  Tribe.  —  Here  we  have  a  relationship 
not  'by  nature  but  by  convention,' ^  'by  an  appetency 
for  the  union,'  ^  as  Dicpearchus  says.     Notice  the  tribal 

1  '  Not  0i5(ret  but  6^a-et. ' 

2  w6d(i)  T^s  ffvv68ov.  I'artly  owning  to  the  misspelling,  in  Droysen's 
text,  of  one  of  tliem,  these  Greek  words  caused  the  translator  much 
perplexity,  for  the  dissipation  of  which  he  is  not  a  little  indebted  to 
the  accomplished  Hellenist,  Arnold  Green,  Esq.,  of  Providence.  Tliey 
are  from  a  fragment  of  Dicsearchiis  handed  down  by  Stephanus  of 
Byzantium,  and  are  given  by  Carolus  Mullerus,  Frar/menta  Tlistori- 
carum  Gnticarum,  vol.   ii,  p.  238,  left  hand  column,  §9,  as  follows: 


IMMNni'LKS    (»F    IIISTOKV.  30 

hero,   the  tjcnlUivia  sacnt.,  raciiil  iuul    clan    loiiuations, 
cognationes  et  propinquifates,  battles  and  cleavages. 

§61. 

(f/)  TiiK  Pkoi'LK.  —  We  have  heie  to  study  com- 
momvealtlis  and  religions  as  instituted  l)y  nature,  tlie 
'etlinie'  age  of  the  world,  the  fixedness  and  tlie  mo- 
bility of  })eo|)les'  types,  in  fact  the  whole  subject  of 
the  so-called  comparative  psychology  of  peoples,  and  of 
'Demology,'  includiuL;'  tlie  jjriiiciple  of  nationality. 

§62. 

B.  In  the  'ideid  partnerships '  it  is  the  task  of  the 
spiritual  nature  to  lind  expression  for  itself  and  to  pass 
over  into  the  sphere  of  actual  things,  tliat  thus  it 
may  be  capable  of  being  perceived  and  understood, 
becoming  a  bond  between  spirits,  a  common  treasure. 

§63. 

(a)  Speech  and  the  Languages.  —  All  thinking 
is  speaking,  moving  in  forms  which  language  lias 
evolved  even  whx^'ii  carrying  these  furtlier.  Vocal 
imitation  is  not  mere  mimicry  of  sound,  l)ut  a  trans- 
lation of  perceptions  into  vocal  expression.  Trace  the 
successive  stages  of  linguistic  evolution,  in  nudtiplicity 
of    forms,    complexity    of   syntax,    growth    of   specific 

oi<TT€  irpdrepov  irbOip  t^s  (Tvvbdov  yevofjAvrji  d5eX<^a?$  avv  dSeX^oj  ;  or,  as 
Miiller  prefers  to  read  :  (jjffTC  irbOi^  t^s  ffwb^ov  t^s  irpbripov  yevo/jJvrjs. 
He  is  talking  about  the  traii.sference  of  a  woman  from  one  pliratria  to 
another,  and  says:  ".so  that  formerly,  owing  to  the  desire  of  coition 
of  sistei-s  with  a  brother,  a  different  comnuuuty  of  .sacra  wa.s  estal> 
li.shed."  Miiller  prefers  to  make  the  formerly  refer  to  the  desire  for 
coition  rather  than  to  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  the  different 
community  of  sacred  rites.  —  Tr. 


40  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DROYSEN. 

^^A,  meanings  to  words.  Accordingly,  by  no  means  does 
^  f '^\  '  tlie  life  of  language  cease  where  the  life  of  History 
-  ^-   begins'  (Schleicher).     Study  sound  and  writing,  also 

'  (  y  the  differences  of  thought-activity  in  languages,  with 
phonetic  writing  and  pictorial  or  ophthalmic  languages. 

§64. 

(?>)  The  Beautiful  and  the  Arts.  —  Artistic 
imitation  is  no  mere  cojiying,  mirroring,  or  echo,  but 
the  reproduction  of  an  impression  made  upon  the  soul, 
sometimes  even  to  the  mistaking  of  one  sense  for  an- 
other, as  the  danseuse  dances  the  spring.  Mark  the 
ideal,  and  also  the  agreeableness  of  the  imitation  of  it 
(Rumohr).  The  technical  and  the  musical  also  fall 
here. 

§65. 

(c)    The  True  and  the  Sciences.  —  Canvass  sci- 
entific   truth,  the    bearing    of    methods,  the    nature    of 
[  skepticism,  of   doctrine,  of    hypothesis,  of   Nominalism 

and  Realism. 

§  66. 

((7)  The  Sacred  and  Religions.  —  Every  relig- 
ion is  an  expression  of  the  need  and  helplessness  of 
finite  being,  and  of  the  need  it  has  to  know  itself  at 
the  same  time  as  enclosed  in  and  with  an  infinite  Being. 
It  is  an  attempted  expression  of  our  feeling  after  God, 
of  our  confidence  of  sanctification  and  salvation  through 
him,  of  our  certainty  of  the  Eternal,  Perfect,  and  Abso- 
lute. Hence  faith  and  worship,  religion  and  theology, 
(,i  and  the  sacred  history  involved  in  every  religion. 


PELNCIPLES    OF    HISTOUY.  41 


§67. 

C.  In  the  'practical  partnerehips '  move  those  iiilei- 
ests  ■wliich  are  conteii<h»((  and  (h^l)atable,  always  at  the 
same  time  bound  together  and  driven  on  ])y  men's 
natural  needs,  always  called  to  and  always  pressing 
towards  ideal  ends  or  results,  though  never  coming 
to  any  but  a  finitely  perfect  condition  or  a  finitely 
satisfied  rest. 

§68. 

(rt)  The  Sphere  of  Socif:ty.  —  Society  assumes  to 
offer  to  every  man  that  position  in  wliicli  the  moral 
partnerships  shall  best  supplement  him  and  he  them. 
Here  come  up  for  review  distinctions  l)etween  classes, 
differences  of  bhjcjd  and  of  culture,  tradition  and 
custom,  the  conservative  elements  of  society,  parties, 
public  opinion,  and  so  on;  in  line,  all  that  goes  to 
constitute  the  social  republic. 

§69. 

(^0  The  Sphere  of  Property.  — Econonuc  organ- 
ization assumes  to  embrace  and  to  determine  all  the 
economic  conditions  and  means  necessaril}-  pertaining 
to  the  moral  partnei"sliips  :  acquisition  and  competition, 
capital  and  labor,  wealtli  and  poverty,  barter  and  money- 
exchange,  the  variation  of  values  and  the  development 
of  credit.    Consider  the  State  as  a  form  of  connnunism. 

§70. 

(e)  The  Sphere  of  Jt-stice.  —  The  system  of 
justice  assumes  to  give  foundation  to  and  to  regulate  all 
the  jural  forms  in  wliich  tlie  moral  partnerships  proceed. 


42  JO  H ANN    GUSTAV   DROYSEN. 

Gauge  here  the  reach  of  the  sphere  of  justice.  '  Justice 
must  remain  justice,'  but  also  must  wish  to  be  nothing 
else.  The  modes  of  establishing  it,  putting  it  into 
operation  and  extending  its  scope  are  to  be  dwelt  upon, 
as  also  the  conception  of  the  State  as  just  an  organ  for 
securing  justice  (^Mechtsstaaf). 

§71. 

(f?)  The  Sphere  of  Authority.  —  The  State  as- 
sumes to  be  the  sum,  the  united  organism,  of  all  the 
moi'al  partnershi})S,  their  common  home  and  harbor,  and 
so  far  their  end. 

The  State  is  the  })ublic  power,  offensive  and  defensive, 
both  at  home  and  abroad.  In  the  life  of  the  State  and 
of  States,  authority  is  thus  the  essential  thing,  in  the 
same  way  as  love  is  in  the  sphere  of  the  family,  faith 
in  the  sphere  of  the  church,  the  beautiful  in  the  sphere 
of  art,  etc.  The  law  of  authority  is  valid  in  the 
political  world  like  that  of  gravity  in  the  world  of 
matter.     'A  ship  a  span  long  is  no  ship  at  all.' 

Only  the  State  has  the  duty  or  the  right  to  be  the 
authority  in  this  sense.  Wherever  jnstice,  property, 
society,  Avherever  even  the  church,  the  people  or  the 
community  come  into  the  position  of  authority,  the 
nature  of  the  State  is  either  not  yet  discovered  or  lost 
in  degeneracy.  Public  authority  is  highest  where  the 
fullest  labor,  health  and  freedom  of  all  the  moral 
spheres  feed  it.  The  State  is  not  related  to  the  other 
moral  spheres  merely  as  they  to  one  another,  but  em- 
braces them  all  within  iU  own  scope.  Under  its  pro- 
tection and  laws,  under  its  guardianshi])  and  responsi- 
bility they  all  move  forward  to  its  salvation  or  ruin. 


PRINCIl'MOS    OK    IIISTOKV.  48 

The  State  is  not  llu'  sum  of  lln'  individuals  whom  it 
comprehends,  nor  docs  it  arise  fiom  their  will,  nor  does 
it  exist  on  account  of  their  will. 

The  more  rough  the  form  of  the  State  the  more  does 
force  take  in  it  the  i)lace  of  authority ;  so  much  the 
poorer  is  it  in  freedom. 

Out  of  the  chaos  of  mere  peoples  State  upon  State 
crystallizes  itself.  Their  relation  to  one  another  moves 
on  from  the  adversus  hosteni  interna  auctoritas  esfo^^  to 
treaty  and  peaceful  commerce  and  to  international  law. 
The  Federal  State,  the  confederation  of  States,  the 
system  of  States,  the  world-system  of  States,  —  these 
are  the  ever  further  reaching  wave-circles  of  this  move- 
ment. 

Ill     THE    WORK    OF    HISTORY    IX    RELATION  l^  ^' 
TO   THE   WORKERS. 

§  72. 

All  changes  and  formations  in  the;  moral  world  are 
wrought  by  acts  of  will,  as  in  the  oi'ganic  world  every- 
thing is  formed  from  cells.  Acts  of  will  are  the 
efficients  even  where  we  say  that  the  State,  the  people, 
the  church,  etc.,  do  this  and  that. 

§73. 
Every  human  l)eing  is  a  moial  sul)ject  ;   only  thus   is 
he  a  Inunan  l)eing.      He   has   lo  huild  for  himself   his 
moral   world    (§  47).      In   every  individual,   as  a  per- 
sonality in  part  already  developed  and  in  part  still  the 

1  '  As  against  a  foreif^ier  your  title  shall  be  eternal.'     Roman  Law 
i»f  the  Twelve  Tables. 


^/^ 


44  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DUOY.SEN. 

subject  of  development,  Ave  feel  an  infinite  interest. 
Witness  bow  insatiably  poetiy  and  romance  follow  out 
and  realize  tbis  interest. 
/  Even  tbe  narrow,  tbe  very  narrowest  of  buman 
relations,  strivings,  activities,  etc.,  liave  a  process,  a 
history,  and  are  for  tbe  persons  involved,  bistorical. 
So  family  bistories,  local  bistories,  special  bistories. 
But  over  all  tbese  and  sucli  bistories  is  History. 

§74. 
As  tbis  marriage,  tbis  work  of  art,  tbis  State,  stands 
related  to  the  idea  of  tbe  family,  of  the  beautiful,  of 
authority,  so  does  tbe  empirical,  ephemeral  '  I '  (§  55) 
stand  related  to  that  '  I '  in  which  tbe  })bilosopber 
thinks,  the  artist  creates,  the  judge  judges,  tbe  historian 
investigates.  Tbe  Universal,  tbis  '  I '  of  humanity,  is 
the  subject  of  History.  History  is  the  yvw^i  aavrov  ^  of 
Humanity,  its  consciousness. 

§75. 
The  life  pulse  of  bistorical  movement  is  freedom. 
Tbe  word  'freedom'  has  been  understood  differently 
at  different  times.  Primarily  it  has  only  a  negative 
meaning.  The  real  meaning  of  freedom  is  unhindered 
participation  in  the  life  and  work  of  each  one  of  the 
moral  spheres,  not  being  disturbed  or  hampered  in  one 
of  them  by  another,  and  not  being  excluded  from  any. 
Every  one  of  them  claims  the  whole  of  every  man,  not 
seldom  to  tbe  total  exclusion  of  the  others.  In  the 
collision  of  duties,  in  the  constantly  painful  perform- 
ance of  these,  and  in  the  often  crushing  result,  finite 
human  nature  sinks  beneath  tbe  postulate  of  freedom. 
1  'Know  Thyself.' 


PRINCil'LES    OK    IIISTOIIY.  45 

§  76.  s:^c/.^^j; 

The  pro]:)leni  of  the  life  of  History  is  not  to  be  2**'  ^, 
sought  in  the  false  alternative  between  freedom  and 
necessity.  Necessity  is  the  opposite  of  arl)itrariness, 
accident,  aimlessness;  morality  is  the  'ought'  —  lying 
in  the  realm  of  the  good,  and  is  not  sul)ject  to  compul- 
sion. Being  free  is  the  ()})posite  of  suffering  compul- 
sion, of  being  dead  of  will,  destitute  of  'I';  the  moral 
is  the  willing  of  the  good  and  is  not  suljject  to 
compulsion. 

The  highest  freedom  is  to  live  for  the  highest  good, 
for  the   end  suijreme   (§  4()),   towai'd  ^\■lli('h   the  move-  , 

ment  of  all  movements,  the  science  of  which  is   His-   ^7>  VJ 
tory,   is   directed.      Hence    'the   full  royal   freedom  of 
the  moral  man'  (Fichte);  hence  the  consecrating  word, 
'wherefore  I  do  crown  and  mitre  thee  over  thyself.'^ 

§77. 

All  movement  in  the  historical  world  goes  on  in  this 

way:  Thought,  which  is  the  ideal  counterpart  of  things 

as  they  really  exist,  devclojjs  itself  as  tilings  ought  to 

be;   and  characters,   iill(Ml  with   tlu?   thought,  bring  the 

things  to  its  standard.     The  condition  of   being  thus 

filled  with  a  thought  is  passion  (Tra^os),  whic-li  comes 

under    obligation    and    responsibility    in    and    through 

action,  according  to  the  old  proverb, 'act  much,  suffer 

nuich.'^ 

§78. 

Thoughts  constitute  the  criticism  of    that  which  is 
and  yet  is  not  as  it  should  be.     Inasmuch  as  they  may 

1  Perch''  io  te  sopra  te  corona  e  mitrin.  — Dante,  Purgatorio,  XXVII, 
142.  -  dpdffavTi  iraOeiu. — vEschyliis,  Choej^hori,  '.US. 


46  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DKOY8EN. 

bring  conditions  to  their  level,  then  broaden  out  and 
harden  themselves  into  accord  with  custom,  conserva- 
tism and  obstinacy,  new  criticism  is  demanded,  and 
thus  on  and  on. 

The  continuity  of  this  censorship  of  thought,  — 
'those  who  hold  the  torch  passing  it  from  one  to 
another '  ^  —  is  what  Hegel  in  his  Philosophy  of  His- 
tory calls  '  the  Dialectic  of  History.' 

§  79. 
That  out  of  the  already  given  conditions  new 
thoughts  arise  and  out  of  the  thoughts  new  conditions, 
- — this  is  the  work  of  men.  The  many,  indeed,  living 
only  for  their  own  interests  and  the  business  of  the 
present,  devoted  to  petty,  ephemeral  aims,  following 
habit,  the  general  stream,  the  nearest  suggestions  — 
these  work  for  History  without  choice  or  will,  in  the 
bulk,  unfreely.  They  are  the  noisy  thyrsus-bearers  in 
the  festal  train  of  the  god,   'but  few  are  the  genuine 

Bacchanals'    [/3aK;(ot  8e'  re  TraPpotJ  .  ^ 

To  anticipate  the  new  thoughts  in  the  movement  of 
the  moral  world,  to  express  them,  to  realize  them,  that 
is  historical  greatness,   'giving  name  to  rolling  time.' 

IV.— THE  WORK   OF   mSTORY   IN   RELATION 
TO    rrS    ENDS. 

§  80. 
All  development  and  growth  is  movement  toward  an 
end,  which  is  to  be  fulfilled  by  the    movement,    thus 

1  Xa/jLTrdda  exovres  Sia8i!i(Tov(nv  dXXi^Xois. 

2  For  the  Greek,  and  the  entire  reference,  see  Plato,  Phaedo,  60  C. 
—  Tr. 


I'laNCll'LES    (»F    IllHToKV.  47 

coming  to  its  realization.  In  the  moral  world  end 
links  itself  to  end  in  an  infinite  chain.  Every  one  of 
these  ends  has  ])riniarily  its  own  way  to  go  and  its  own 
development  to  further,  l)nt  at  the  same  time  each  is  a 
condition  for  the  others  and  is  eonditioiied  hy  them. 
Often  enough  tliey  repress,  interi'upt  and  coiitiadict 
one  another.  Often  appear  here  and  there  temporary 
and  partial  steps  l)ackwards;  but  always  oidy  that 
presently,  with  so  much  stronger  advance  and  with 
exalted  elasticity,  work  may  l)e  })ushe(l  forwaid  at  some 
new  spot  or  in  some  new  form,  each  form  im})elling  the 
rest  and  impelled  by  them. 

§  81. 

The  highest  end,  which  conditions  without  l)eing 
conditioned,  moving  them  all,  embracing  them  all,  ex- 
plaining them  all,  that  is,  tlie  supreme  end  (§  1")),  is 
not  to  be  discovered  l)y  em[)irical  investigation. 

Out  of  the  self-consciousness  of  our  ^  I  '  (§  12),  out 
of  the  pressure  of  our  moral  will  and  our  sense  of 
obligation  (§  76),  out  of  that  longing  after  the  one 
complete,  eternal  Being  in  whom  our  needy,  ephemeral 
and  fragmentary  existence  first  feels  its  lack  supplied, 
there  reveals  itself  to  ns,  in  addition  to  the  other 
'  proofs '  of  the  existence  of  God,  the  one  which  is  for 
us  most  demonstrative. 

Evil  cleaves  to  the  finite  spirit ;  it  is  the  shadow  of 
its  finiteness  when  it  is  tiu-ned  to  the  light.  It  belongs 
in  the  economy  of  the  historical  movement,  but  only 
'as  what  vanishes  in  the  process  of  things,  destined  for 
destruction.' 


48  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DllOYSEN. 

§82. 

What  their  genus  is  to  animals  and  plants  —  for  the 
genus  exists  '  in  order  that  they  may  participate  in  the 
A  ^  ^.        timeless  and  the  divine  '  ^  —  that  History  is  to  human 
'^  beings. 

Ethics  is  the  doctrine  of  the  moral  potencies  and  not 

merely  that  of  the  relations  of  persons  to  them  and  in 

'0^  /  /'f  them.     Ethics  and  History^  are  co-ordinates,  as  it  were  ; 

/V,  for  History  furnishes  the  genesis  of  the  'postulate  of 

the   practical  reason,'   which   postulate   'pure    reason' 

could  not  discover. 

§83. 
A  History  is  humanity  becoming  and  being  conscious 

j:y  concerning  itself.  The  epochs  of  History  are  not  the 
life  })eriods  of  this  '  I '  of  Humanity  —  empirically  we 
do  not  know  whether  this  race  '  I '  is  RTowinef  old  or 
renewing  its  youth,  only  that  it  does  not  continue  to 
be  what  it  was  or  is,  —  Ijut  they  are  stages  in  that  ego's 
self-knowledge,  its  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of 
God. 

§84. 

According  to  the  number  of  these  traversed  stages, 
grows  the  expression  which  man  is  able  to  form  of  the 
Supreme  End,  of  his  longing  after  it,  and  of  the  way 
to  it.  The  fact  that  this  expression  broadens,  enlarges 
and  deepens  itself  with  every  stage,  is  the  only  thing 
which  can  wish  to  pass  for  the  advancement  of 
humanity. 

§85. 

To  the  finite  eye  beginning  and  end  are  veiled,  but 
the  direction  of  the  streaming  movement  it  can  by  in- 

1  'Lva.  Tov  del  koX  rod  deiov  /tter^xwcrtv. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  49 

vestigation  detect.  Condemned  to  the  narrow  limit  of 
the  here  and  the  now,  it  yet  dimly  espies  the  whence 
and  the  whither.  It  sees  wliat  it  sees  hy  l^eing  IIIKmI 
with  a  light  in  which  and  from  Avliich  everything  is, 
even  its  seeing  being  a  remote  reflection  of  that  liglit 
itself.  The  direct  gloiy  of  that  light  our  eye  could 
not  l)ear,  but  practicing,  clarifying,  inflaming  its  vision 
in  the  illuminated  spheres  wliich  do  disclose  themselves 
to  it,  it  catches  gleauLS  of  ever  greater  reaches,  ever 
more  comprehensive  emi:)yreans.  Among  the  circles 
thus  formed  the  human  world  with  its  histoi-y  is  one.  3^B^ 
The  historically  great  is  only  a  mote  in  the  sun-mist  of 
this  manifestation  of  God. 

§  86. 
History  is  Humanity's  knowledge  of  itself,  its  cer-   ^^ 
tainty  about  itself.     It  is  not  'the  light  and  the  truth,' 
but  a  search  therefor,  a  sermon  thereupon,  a  consecra- 
tion thereto.    It  is  like  John  the  Baptist,  '  not  that  Light 
but  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that  Ligfht.'  ^ 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    SYSTEMATIC 
PRESENTATION. 

§87. 
As    eveiything  which   moves   the   mind   calls  for  a 
corresponding  expression  wherein  the  mind  may  sliape 
it,  so  also  the  results  of  historical  investigation   need 
their  forms  of  expression  —  'an  exposition  of  history,'    ^<t, 

*  OvK  fju  rh  (pQs  dW  Sti  fxaprvpriar]  irepl  tov  0a>T(5s.  - — John,  i  :  8. 


50  JOHANN    GUST  A  V    DROYSEN. 

as  Herodotus  1  lias  it  —  in  order  that  the  investigation 
may,  as  it  were,  give  an  account  of  what  it  has  purposed 
and  attained. 

§88. 

The  forms  of  presentation  here  are  not  determined 
after  the  analogy  of  epic,  lyric,  or  dramatic  composi- 
tion,2  or  by  the  '  distribution  of  time  and  space  applied 
to  the  acts  of  human  freedom  in  the  State,'  ^  or  follow- 
ing the  accidental  medley  of  chronicles,  remarkable 
events,  pictures  from  antiquity,  narratives  '  of  exploits 
in  which  the  narrator  personally  took  part ; '  *  but  they  are 
fixed  by  the  doul^le  nature  of  the  matter  investigated. 

The  investigation  which  knows  how,  from  the  present 
and  from  certain  elements  given  in  tlie  jjresent  and 
used  by  it  as  historical  material,  to  produce  ideas  of 
processes  and  circumstances  pertaining  to  past  events,  — 
such  investigation  has  a  double  nature  ;  it  is  two  things 
at  once.  It  is  the  enrichment  and  deepening  of  the 
present  by  clearing  up  past  events  pertaining  to  it,  and 
it  is  a  clearing  up  of  these  past  events  by  unlocking  and 
unfolding  certain  remnants  of  them,  remnants  of  facts 
which  were  relatively  obscure  and  perhaps  exceedingly 
so,  even  when  present. 

Still,  in  every  case,  however  fruitful  the  investigation 
may  have  been,  ideas  arrived  at  by  its  aid  are  far  from 
reaching  the  fullness  of  content,  movement,  manifold- 
ness  of  forms  and  of  real  enersfy  which  the  oroinal  thino-s 
had  when  they  constituted  '  the  present.'  Always, 
moreover,  whatever  form  may  be  chosen  for  the  exposi- 
tion   of    the    results   which  investigation    has   brought 

1  icTTopirjs  aTrSSei^is.  -  Gerviims.  ■''  Waclisnmth. 

^  Auliis  Gellius  :  qutbiis  rehiift  (([/endis  intcrfuerif  is  qui  narret. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  51 

forth,  this  exposition  will  and  can  correspond  only  par- 
tially, in  a  certain  way  and  from  certain  points  of  view, 
to  the  existence  of  things  as  they  appeared  when  pres- 
ent, in  the  eyes  of  men  then  living  and  active.  In  this 
it  is  analogous  to  representations  by  graphic  methotls. 

§89. 

For  a  long  time  historical  presentation  satisfied  itself 
with  taking  up  views  contained  in  oral  and  written 
sources,  re-shaping  them  more  or  less,  and  recounting 
them  afresli ;  and  the  facts  regarded  through  this  illu- 
sion as  'transmitted,'  passed  for  valid  History,  much  as 
if  the  history  of  Alexander  the  (ireat's  successoi-s  should 
pass  a,s  nothing  hut  a  succession  of  wai-s,  because  for- 
sooth our  sources  for  that  period  speak  of  scarcely  any- 
thing else  but  Avai-s.  Only  since  we  have  begun  to 
recognize  Monuments  and  Remains  as  included  in  his- 
toiical  mati'rial  and  to  avail  ourselves  of  tlicm  method- 
ically, has  the  investigation  of  past  events  gone  deeper 
and  planted  itself  on  a  firmer  foundation.  And  with 
the  di.scovery  of  tlie  immeasvuable  gaps  in  our  historical 
knowledge,  whicli  investigation  has  not  yet  filled  u^) 
and  ])erhaps  now  never  can  fill  up,  investigation  espies 
ever  wider  l)readths  to  the  domains  with  which  it  has 
to  do.  and  anticipates  one  day  filling  them  witli  life. 
The  presentation  of  the  results  of  investigation  will  be 
more  correct  the  more  its  consciousness  of  its  ignorance 
equals  that  of  its  knowledge  (§  35). 

§90. 

('0  *"  JnteiTogative  exposition,'  to  set  forth  the  resnlt 
at  which  investi<_ration   has  aiii\-ed.  uses  the  form  of  iu' 


o2  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DllOYSEN. 

vestigation  itself.  This  species  of  exposition  is  not  a  re- 
port or  minute  register  of  the  actual  investigation,  includ 
ing  its  false  steps,  errors  and  resultless  measures,  but  it 
proceeds  as  if  what  has  at  last  been  discovered  in  the 
investigation  were  now  first  to  be  discovered  or  sought. 
It  is  a  general  imitation  of  preceding  search  or  discovery. 
It  may  adopt  the  form  of  starting  out  from  assumed 
ignorance  with  a  question  or  a  dilemma  and  seeking  the 
true  answer,  as  the  advocate  at  the  bar  proceeds  when 
he  has  to  prove  the  so-called  subjective  fact  from  the 
objective  ;  or  the  form  of  taking  some  certain  datum, 
following  up  its  signs  and  traces  and  finding  further 
data  at  every  step  until  at  last  the  total  result  stands 
before  us  connected  and  complete.  This  course  cor- 
responds to  that  of  the  judge,  who,  in  conducting  an 
inquiry,  has  to  infer  the  subjective  fact  from  the  ob- 
jective. The  former  of  these  methods  is  the  more  con- 
vincing and  demonstrative ;  the  latter  is  the  more 
tbamatic  and  commands  the  attention  better.  For  both 
it  is  essential  to  avoid  what  is  so  natural,  introducing  a 
chaos  of  irrelevant  topics,  casting  less  light  upon  the' 
subject  than  upon  the  learned  idleness  of  the  author. 

§91. 

(5)  '  Recitative  exposition '  sets  forth  the  results  of 
investigation  as  a  course  of  events  in  imitation  of  its 
actual  development.  It  takes  those  results  and  shapes 
fi'om  them  an  image  of  the  genesis  of  the  historical 
facts  upon  which  investigation  has  been  at  work.  It  is 
only  in  appearance  that  the  'facts'  in  such  a  case 
speak  for  themselves,  alone,  exclusively,  'objectively.' 
Without  the  narrator  to  make  them  speak,  they  would 


PRINCIPLES    OF    HISTORY.  63 

be  dumb.  It  is  not  objectivity  tbat  is  tbe  bistorian's 
best  glory.  His  justness  consists  in  seeking  to  under- 
stand. 

Recitative  exposition  is  possil)le  in  eitberof  four  forms: 

(1)  Tbe  'pragmiitic'  sbows  bow  an  event  tbat  was 
premeditated  or  foreordained  by  fate,  coukl  occur,  did 
occur,  and  was  forced  to  occur  so  and  so,  tbrougli  tbe 
movement  of  tbings  converging  upon  tbat  })oint. 

(2)  Tbe  'monograpliic  '  sbows  bow  in  its  develop- 
ment and  growtli  an  liistorical  formation  grounded  and 
deepened  itself  and  wrougbt  itself  out,  brougbt  foitli 
its  genius,  as  it  were. 

(3)  Tbe  '•  biograpbieal '  sbows  bow  tbe  genius  of  an 
historical  personality  determined  from  tbe  beginning 
tbe  action  and  suftering  of  tbat  personality,  and  also 
manifested  and  attested  itself  in  tbe  same. 

(4)  Tbe  *■  catastroj)liic  '  sbows  various  foiins,  tenden- 
cies, interests,  parties,  etc.,  eacb  witb  some  rigbt  on  its 
side,  engaged  in  a  battle,  wberein  tbe  bigber  tbougbt, 
whose  elements  or  sides  display  tliemselves  in  the 
parties  contending  in  the  struggle,  justifies  and  fulfils 
itself  by  vanquishing  and  reconciling  them.  This 
sj)ecies  of  ex])osition  shows  bow  out  of  tbe  wais  of  the 
Titans  a  new  world  and  tbe  uv.w  gods  eame  into  being. 

§92. 

((')  '  Didactic  exposition  '  seizes  tbe  matter  tbat  has 
been  investigate([7"under  tbe  thought  of  its  great  his- 
torical continuity,  in  order  to  bring  out  its  signitieaiue 
as  instruction  for  the  present.  History  is  not  instructive  -f,  ^j^ 
in  consequence  of  affording  patterns  for  imitation  or 
rules  for  new  application,  but  tluough  the  fact  that  we 


54  JOHANN    GUSTAV    DEOYSEN. 

mentally  live  it  over  again  and  live  according  to  it.  '  It 
is  a  repertory  of  ideas  furnishing  matter  which  judg- 
ment must  needs  put  into  the  crucible  in  order  to 
purify  it.'  ^ 

Finished    intellectual    training   is   culture.     This   is 

^ '     Qi^'  •  military,  legal,  theological,  if  intended  for  these  callings, 

i>^  i^^v     or  general  culture  if  it  has  the  aim  of  exercising  and 

•^  developing  in  us  not  this  or  that  individual  or  technical 

ability,  but  the  human  qualities  in   general.     It  may 

then  be   well   termed   '  Humanity,'  for   '  precisely  the 

course  whereby  the  human  race  arrived  at  its  perfection, 

every  individual  human  being  must  have  passed  over' 

(Lessing). 

In   the   conception   of   this    author's    '  Education   of 

the    Human   Race,'    culture  —  apart  from  special  and 

f  technical  —  derives  its  matter  as  well  as  its  forms  (§  6) 

^   S',/f    from    Historv-     And    indeed    the   fact   that   the   great 

A^  /    1 1^  movements  of  History  complete  themselves  in  a  small 

/\^  circle    of   typical    foi'mations,    the    greatest   in    a  still 

4L  smaller  circle,  makes  it  possible  valuably  to  a]3ply  His- 

iM  L  /  /     tory  in   a   didactic   way   not   only   to   the    higher   and 

even  the  highest  needs,  but  also  to  the  elementary. 

Are  there   forms   of  historical   presentation  for  this 

purpose?       Are    Herder's    presentations    of   Universal 

{■^^,  /f       History,  or  Schlozer's,  Johannes  von  Miiller's,  Leo's, 

or  von   Ranke's,   patterns   for  this  kind   of   historical 

composition  ? 

No  one  will  measure  the  worth  of  the  sermon  in  the 
Evangelical  Church  by  printed  sermons,  still  less  desire 

1  Frederic  the  Great,  CEuvres,  IV,  p.  xvii :  Cest  un  repertoire 
(TiiMea  qui  fournit  de  la  matiere  que  le  jugement  doit  passer  au  creuset 
pour  V^purer. 


rniNClI'LKS    OF    lllSTnltV.  55 

the  enforcement  of  ;i  canon  seeniinj^  for  every  Sunday 
a  sermon  according  to  a  prescribed  j)attern.  Rather 
shouhl  every  sermon  ])e  a  new  witness  to  the  living 
evangelical  spirit  in  our  Church  ;  and  so  far  as  the 
congregation  is  editied  hy  them  they  are  so. 

The  coiTect  form  of  didactic  exposition  is  tiie  his- 
torical instruction  of  youth.  Particularh'  is  this  so 
where  it  is  in  the  hands  of  a  teacher  who  moves  in  the 
fiehLs  of  History  as  master,  with  the  highest  possible 
freedom  and  independence  as  an  investigator,  and  by 
communicating  his  instruction  in  ever  new  shapes  and 
turns  bcai-s  witness  to  the  spirit  that  fills  and  bears  on 
the  life  of  History. 

§  93. 

(rf)  '  Discussive  exposition  '  takes  the  total  result  of 
the  investigation,  gathers  all  its  rays  as  in  a  concave 
miiTor,  and  turns  them  upon  some  definite  point  of 
present  interest,  throwing  light  upon  it  thus  in  order 
to  'set  it  clear.'  It  may  be  some  question  to  be  decided, 
some  pair  of  alternatives  which  is  to  yield  a  choice,  or 
some  new  phenomenon  the  undei-standing  of  which  is 
to  be  mastered.  To  everything  new,  not  only  political 
facts,  but  also  fresh  discoveries,  recent  efforts  in  art  and 
science,  etc.,  historical  elucidation  and  comparison  has 
to  assign  its  place  in  the  progressive  coui*se  and  sweep 
of  human  endeavor.  AVe  here  refer  to  criticism,  scien- 
tific, iesthetic,  of  the  publicist,  etc. 

The  points  to  be  established  in  any  given  discussion 
lie  partly  within  the  subject  discussed,  as  that  tliis 
nation,  this  power,  this  church,  etc.,  has  had,  in  virtue 
of  its  historical  antecedents,  such  or  such  a  character. 
For  instance,  the  old  '.sint  ut  xunt  aut  non  t<{nt\     But 


56  JOHANN    GUSTAV   DEOYSEN. 

also  in  outside  matters  simply  conditioning  and  deter- 
mining tlie  suljject,  and  in  fact  in  the  whole  congeries 
of  events  prevailing  at  any  moment,  the  elements  wliich 
give  broad  determination  to  its  historical  connection 
■     are  to  he  found,  interpreted  and  applied. 

The  essence  of  theory  is  that  it  gathers  from  the 
shaping  and  elaborating  process  of  investigation  its  net 
results,  and  imparts  to  them  the  form  of  a  principle,  a 
lawgiving  conclusion,  with,  indeed,  a  legitimate  claim 
to  this  character.  The  more  the  theor}"  has  failed  to 
sum  up  all  the  elements,  the  more  one-sidedly  it  brings 
into  prominence  what  lies  nearest  or  is  least  active, 
the  more  doctrinaire  it  is.  This  appears  in  that  the 
determinative  element,  Avliich  at  any  given  time  led  to 
the  further  step,  was,  witli  its  favoring  nature,  present 
and  operative  only  for  that  case,  under  those  circum- 
stances, for  that  end. 

Every  State  has  its  own  politics,  domestic  as  well  as 
foreign.  Discussion,  even  in  the  press,  in  the  council 
of  state,  and  in  parliament,  is  reliable  in  proportion  as 
it  is  historical ;  ruinous  in  the  degree  in  which  it  bases 
itself  upon  mere  doctrines,  or  upon  idols  of  the  theater, 
forum,  den  and  tribe. 
y  The  practical  significance  of  historical  studies  lies  in 
the  fact  that  they,  and  they  alone,  hold  up  before  the 
State,  or  people,  or  army,  its  own  picture.  Especially  is 
historical  study  the  basis  for  political  improvement  and 
culture.  The  statesman  is  the  historian  in  practice, 
'  able  to  see  into  realities,  and  to  do  the  things  that  are 
to  be  done.'  ^  The  State  is,  however,  but  the  most 
complex  among  the  organisms  belonging  to  the  moral 

1  QeWprjTLKOS  TUIV  OPTWV  Kai   WpaKTiKbs   tQp  deOVTCJV. 


PRINfll'LES    OK    IIISTOUV.  57 

potencies.  Every  formation  of  the  kind  retpiires  similar 
self-control  throngh  discussion.  We  may  specify  ec- 
clesiastical government,  the  conduct  of  industrial  under- 
takings, the  arrangement  of  a  scientilic  expedition,  and 
such  things. 

§  94. 

With  till'  last  iianicd  fdiiii  of  exposition  our  science 
indeed  entei-s  wide  realms  ;  hut  it  cainiot  forhear  to 
aftimi  it«  authority  also  in  these,  in  the  same  way  as 
the  natural  sciences  have  no  hesitation  in  proceeding  to 
demonstrate  their  value  wherever  their  methods  show 
themselves  ap])licahle.  P^ven  the  investigations  and 
results  of  the  natural  sciences  are  not  the  Avork  of 
abstract  ohservation  and  experiment,  as  if  they  uttered 
no  voice  save  tliat  of  the  facts  which  have  been  observed 
and  interrogated.  It  is  the  mighty  total  of  repeated 
yet  enlarging  life-experiences  displaying  itself  in  the 
continuity  of  History  ;  it  is  this  which  fii-st  gives  to  the  ^'  A. 
minds  investigating  in  this  field  the  elevation  and 
compiuss  of  views  and  thoughts  enabling  them  thus  to 
obsei've  and  get  things  ready  to  be  questioned,  thus  to 
combine  and  conclude.  The  same  is  true  of  the  specu- 
lative sciences.  For  all  growth  in  men's  thinking  and 
invention,  in  their  creative  activity,  determination  and 
efficiency,  proceeds  in  respect  to  forms  exclusively,  and 
to  a  great  extent  in  respect  to  materials,  fn)m  these 
laboriously  gotten  results  and  repeated  life  experiences, 
to  investigate  whose  continuity  is  the  task  of  History.     /^. 

§95. 

Our   science   does   not   pretend   that   its   method    of 
investigation  is  the  only  scientific  one   (^§  14).      It  con- 


58  JUHANN    GUSTAV   DIIOYSEN. 

tents  itself  with  being  able  in  its  expositions  of  results, 
to  give  only  so  mucli  as  its  province  and  investigation 
enable  it  to  get,  only  so  much  as  its  methods  put  within 
its  powers.  And  the  more  questions  there  are  in  its 
various  departments  which  it  is  conscious  of  being  no 
longer  or  not  yet  able  satisfactorily  to  answer,  the  more 
careful  it  will  be  about  pretending  that  its  result  is 
greater  than  it  legitimately  is  or  can  be.  The  aim  of 
the  historical  expositor  thus  is  to  afford  an  idea  elabor- 
ated in  the  most  certain  measure  possible  and  developed 
in  the  closest  possible  accord  with  facts,  of  things  which 
Avere  present  and  actual,  whether  in  recent,  distant  or 
most  ancient  times,  though  they  now  live  and  have  a 
contemporary  character  only  in  the  knowledge  of  men. 


APPENDICES. 


59 


I.  —  The  Elevation  of  History  to  tlie  Eaiik  of 
a  Science. 

BKING   A    KEVIEW   OF   TIIH    HISTORY    OF    CIVILIZATION 
IN   ENGLAND,!    HV    II.  T.   HlTTvLK. 

Our  age  is  fond  of  boasting  that  no  preceding  one 
.equals  it  in  the  freedom  and  bokhiess  with  which  it 
works  or  in  the  magnitude  or  the  practical  character  of 
its  results.  True,  and  we  must,  Avithout  envy,  give  tlie 
prize  to  tlie  natural  sciences  for  what  they  accomplish 
toward  this  result,  and  for  the  Avay  in  which  they 
accomplish  it. 

The  energy  of  these  branches  of  learning  comes  from 
their  having  a  completely  clear  consciousness  of  their 
j)rol)lcms,  their  means,  their  methods,  and  from  the  fact 
that  they  consider  the  things  whicli  they  draw  into  tlie 
compass  of  their  investigations  under  those  i)oints  of 
view,  and  those  only,  upon  whicli  their  method  is  Uised. 

A  French  investigator  strikingly  characterizes  this 
field  of  studies  in  the  foUowijig  often  cited  words : 
'  Whenever  we  can  transfer  one  of  the  vital  phenomena 
to  the  class  of  the  physical,  we  have  made  a  new  con- 
quest in  the  sciences,  whose  realm  is  thereby  so  much 
enlarged.  In  such  a  case,  facts  take  the  place  of  words, 
analysis  of  hypothesis  ;  the  laws  of  organic  bodies  fall 
together  with  those  of  inorganic,  and  like  them  become 
susceptible  of  explanation  and  simplification.' 

iVol.  I,  e.l.  •_',  London.  IS.-)S.     Vol.  IL  1»JI. 

61 


/^, 


62  APPENDICES. 

But  this  judgment  here  appears  in  a  universal  form, 
whose  legitimacy  is  more  than  questionahle.  Is  it, 
indeed,  true  that  a  new  conquest  is  made  in  science 
only  when  vital  phenomena  are  transferred  to  the  class 
of  physical?  Would  that  be,  in  fact,  a  correct  defini- 
tion of  the  essence  and  scope  of  science?  Should  the 
other  realms  of  human  discovery  be  obliged  to  recognize 
themselves  as  of  a  scientific  nature  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  in  a  condition  to  transfer  vital  phenomena  to 
the  class  of  physical  phenomena? 

It  is  not  alone  the  astonishing  performance  and 
results  of  work  in  natural  science  which  spreads  abroad 
the  conviction  that  its  method  is  in  a  preeminent  meas- 
ure scientific,  the  only  scientific  one.  The  deeper 
ground  of  popularity  attaching  to  that  way  of  looking 
at  things  whose  counterpart  is  in  the  world  of  quanti- 
tative phenomena,  lies  in  the  mode  of  culture  prevalent 
in  our  age,  and  in  that  stage  of  development  at  which 
we  have  arrived  sociall}^  and  politically. 

Buckle  is  not  the  first  who  has  attempted  to  treat 
the  unscientific  character  of  History,  the  '  methodless 
matter,'  ^  as  an  ancient  writer  names  it,  by  the  method 
of  exhibiting  vital  phenomena  under  points  of  view 
analogous  to  those  which  are  the  starting-point  of  the 
exact  sciences.  But  a  notion  which  others  have  inci- 
dentally broached  under  some  formula  about  '  natural 
growth,'  or  carried  out  in  the  very  inadequate  and 
merely  figurative  idea  of  the  inorganic ;  what  still 
others,  as  Comte  in  his  attractive  '■Philosophie  Posi- 
tive,^ have  developed  speculatively.  Buckle  undertakes 
to  ground  in  a  comprehensive  historical  exposition. 

1  d/xidodos  v\i].     See  page  107. 


THE    ELEVATION    OF    HISTORY.  63 

He  si^eaks  with  sharp  exijressioiis  of  the  'guikl  of 
historians '  and  tlieir  doings  hitherto,  of  the  poverty  of 
thought  under  which  they  have  hibored,  and  the  absence 
of  i)rinciples  in  their  investigations.  He  tliinks  tliat, 
working  in  tlieir  way,  'every  1)ootmaker  is  fitted  for  a 
writer  of  history.'  'If,  through  indolence  of  thought  If* 
or  natural  limitation  he  is  not  capable  of  handling  the 
highest  branches  of  knowledge,  he  needs  only  to  apply 
a  few  yeai-s  to  the  reading  of  a  certain  number  of  ])ooks, 
and  he  may  Avrite  the  history  of  a  great  people  and  j f. 
attain  consideration  in  his  profession."  Mr.  Buckle  lintLs 
that  'as  regards  all  higher  tendencies  of  human  think- 
ing, History  still  lies  in  deplorable  incompleteness  and  "  'y 
presents  so  confused  and  anarchical  an  appearance  as 
were  to  be  expected  only  in  case  of  a  subject  with 
unknown  laws  or  destitute  as  3-et  even  of  a  foundation.' 

lie  purposes  to  raise  History  to  a  science  by  showing  nJ 
how  to  demonstrate  historical  facts  out  of  (general  laws. 
He  paves  the  way  for  this  by  setting  forth  that  the 
earliest  and  rudest  conceptions  touching  the  coui-se  of 
human  destiny  were  those  indicated  by  the  ideius  of 
chance  and  necessity,  that  '  in  all  probability '  out  of 
these  grew  later  the  '  dogmas '  of  free  will  and  pre- 
destination, tliat  Ixitli  are  in  great  degree  'mistakes,'  or 
that,  as  he  adds,  ••  we  at  least  have  no  adequate  proof  of 
their  truth.'  He  finds  that  all  the  changes  of  which 
History  is  full,  all  the  vicissitudes  which  have  come  upon  y 
the  human  race,  its  advance  and  its  decline,  its  ha[)j)i- 
ness  and  its  misery,  must  be  the  fruit  of  a  double  agency, 
the  working  of  outer  phenomena  upon  our  nature  and 
the  wdiking  of  our  natuic  ii})on  outer  ])lienome]ia.' 
He  has  confidence  tliat    lie  lias  discovered  the  "laws'  of 


O-i  APPENDICES. 

this  double  influence,  and  that  he  has  therefore  elevated 
the  History  of  mankind  to  a  science. 

Buckle  sees  the  peculiar  historical  content  of  Hu- 
manity's life  in  that  which  he  calls  Civilization.  He 
has  traced  the  Jtdaiory  of  civilization  among  the  English, 
French,  Spanish,  and  Scotch,  that  he  may  illustrate  by 
these  examples  the  application  of  liis  method  and  the 
justilication  of  the  laws  discovered  l)y  him.  He  arrives 
at  these  laws,  as  he  says,  in  the  two  only  possible  ways, 
deduction  and  induction.  He  i)roceeds  deductively  in 
showing  how  the  historical  development  of  civilization 
is  explained  by  these  laws,  and  inductively  in  that  he 
gathers  out  of  the  multitudinous  facts  which  he  has 
collected  in  his  studies  the  standard  and  important  ones, 
and  finds  the  higher  expression  tliat  unites  them. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  criticise  his  induction  and  de- 
duction from  the  point  of  view  of  the  historical  material 
brought  forward  in  substantiation  of  them.  There 
might  be  in  his  manner  of  employing  sources,  in  the 
choice  of  his  statements,  in  the  fitness  of  his  combina- 
tions, a  large  and  constant  intermixture  of  error,  caprice 
and  inadequacy  —  as  is  actually  the  case — -without 
lessening  the  scientific  importance  of  the  problem 
which  he  introduces  to  our  science  or  of  the  method 
which  he  recommends  for  its  solution.  Buckle  the  his- 
torian would  only  have  retired  behind  Buckle  the 
philosopher,  and  it  would  remain  for  professional  his- 
torians to  exemplify  and  test  tlie  great  discovery  pre- 
sented by  him  better  than  the  gifted  dilettant  in  our 
studies  could  do. 

Von  Sybel's  Zeifschrift  contained  some  time  ago  a  few 
instructive  essays  upon  Historical  Metliod  and  the  mode 


THE    ELEVATION    OF    lllSTOKY.  65 

and  reach  of  historical  knowledge,  showing  also  liow 
guardedly  History  should  deal  with  those  questions  /  u 
which,  never  of  a  purely  historical  nature,  must  yet  l^ 
treated  and  in  her  way  solved  by  our  science,  unless  she 
i-i  willing  to  run  tlie  risk  of  having  problems  offered 
her,  paths  ])rescribed  for  her  and  dclinitions  of  science 
thrust  u[)(»n  licr  from  a  foreign  source,  to  wliicli  slie 
cannot  agree  without  self-i'cnunciation,  Avithout  giving 
over  that  calling  in  the  field  of  human  knowledge  which 
she  and  she  alone  can  fulfil. 

The  recognition  \\\\\  not  be  denied  to  historical  stud- 
ies that  even  they  liave  some  })art  in  the  intellectual 
nKU'ement  of  our  age,  that  they  are  active  in  discovering 
the  new,  in  investigating  anew  what  has  l)een  transmit- 
ted, and  in  presenting  results  in  appropriate  forms.  But 
when  asked  their  scientific  justification  and  their  rela- 
tion to  the  other  circles  of  Imman  knowledge,  when 
asked  what  is  tlie  foundation  of  their  procedure,  what 
the  connection  of  their  means  and  their  problems,  they 
are  up  to  date  in  no  condition  to  give  satisfactory  in- 
formation. However  earnestly  and  thoroughly  individ- 
ual membei"s  of  our  'guild'  may  have  thought  through 
these  questions,  our  science  has  not  3^et  set  its  theory 
and  system  on  a  lirm  footing.  Meantime  we  console 
ourselves  with  the  tliought  that  it  is  not  only  a  science 
but  aiso  an  art,  and  perhaps  —  at  least  according  to  the 
judgment  of  the  public  —  an  art  more  than  a  science. 

We  in  Germany  have  slight  ground  to  ignore  the 
high  importance  of  advanced  technique  in  our  studies, 
of  our  increasing  practice  and  certitude  in  historical 
criticism,  or  of  the  results  whicli  have  been  reached 
througli  these  means.     I'lie  quest  which  concerns  us 


66  APPENDICES. 

here  is  another.  A  work  like  Buckle's  is  well  adapted 
to  remind  us  how  very  unclear,  contradictory  and  beset 
with  arbitrary  opinions  the  foundations  of  our  science 
ai^.  And  the  deep  impression  which  the  work  has 
made  not  only  upon  the  numerous  lovers  of  each  newest 
pai-adox,  be  it  table-rapping,  phalanstery,  or  the  olive 
leaf  of  the  friencLs  of  peace,  but  also  on  many  younger 
adherents  of  historical  studies,  may  well  be  a  warning 
to  us  at  last  to  seek  after  the  foundation  of  our  science 
too,  in  certitude  about  which  the  natural  sciences  since 
Bacon  —  unless  he  is  for  other  reasons  undeserving  of 
place  at  the  head  of  the  development  —  are  in  advance 
of  us. 

Now  is  it  Buckle's  merit  to  have  achieved  his  pur- 
pose ?  Can  he  have  developed  the  true  meaning  and 
idea  of  the  historical  branches  of  learning  or  fixed  the 
extent  of  their  application?  Is  he  the  Bacon  of  the 
historical  sciences  and  his  work  the  Organon  to  teach 
us  to  think  historically?  Has  the  method  which  he 
propounds  power  to  remove  from  the  realms  of  histori- 
cal knowledge  the  idols  of  the  den,  forum,  theatre,  and 
so  on,  which  even  to-day  obscure  our  sight  in  the  form 
of  the  '  errors ',  as  he  calls  tliem,  of  free-will  and  divine 
providence,  the  over-valuation  of  the  moral  principle  in 
relation  to  the  intellectual,  and  the  like  ?  And  if  he  is 
really  right  in  appealing  for  the  most  interesting  of  his 
fundamental  propositions,  that  touching  free-will,  to  our 
Kant,  who,  like  Buckle  himself,  as  Buckle  thinks, 
regarded  'the  reality  of  free-will  in  the  world  of  phe- 
nomena as  an  untenable  assumption,'  can  he  claim  pri- 
ority in  the  discovery  just  made  in  Germany  with  such 
lively  acclaim,  that  Kant's  teaching  is  2)reeisely  the  re- 


THE   ELEVATION    OF    HISTORY.  67 

verse  of  what  has  hitherto  been  supposed,  and  that  the 
result  of  Kant's  two  Critiques  is  that  both  are  false? 

Buckle's  translator  adverts  to  the  fact  that  u[)  to  the 
present  time  the  Kantian  pliilosophy  has  been  the  ex- 
trenu^  limit  to  wliieh  Knt^dish  tliiiikers  have  ventured. 
lie  calls  Buckle's  philosopliy  'incom[)lete  thinking,  in 
which  crude  criticism  jjasses  as  pliilosophy,'  and  charges 
upon  his  author,  in  spite  of  the  Ved.is  and  of  Cousin 
and  Kant,  the  only  non-English  authorities  he  quotes, 
'  a  truly  antit^ue  consciousness  touching  all  proper 
thought.'  When,  however,  he  greets  the  laws  found  by 
Buckle  'as  a  splendid  and  entirely  truthful  program  of 
the  j^rogress  of  the  human  mind,"  and  speaks  of  the 
reformer's  role  which  the  work  is  to  play  even  in  (ier- 
many,  tlie  utterances  badly  embarrass  us.  Must  we,  an 
'  antistrophe  '  a.s  it  were  to  our  former  statement,  admit 
that  a  large  element  of  error,  inadequacy  and  anticpie- 
ness  runs  right  through  Buckle's  philosoi)bi(  al  buttress- 
ing of  his  theory,  yet  does  not  lessen  the  reformatory 
significance  of  his  work,  this  Ijeing  injured  as  little  by 
the  philosophical  as  by  the  historical  dilettantism  of 
the  author? 

Perha[)s,  free  from  the  scholastic  'anticipations'  of 
both  these  two  departments,  and  so  al)le  to  canvass  the 
more  impartially  the  question  of  the  nature  and  laws 
of  History<  Buckle  can  point  out  the  way,  so  clear  /'*'/• 
to  every  sound  human  undci^tanding,  by  which  History  ^^^ 
is  to  be  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  He  rei)eatedly 
confesses  that  lie  wishes  to  observe  and  argue  entirely 
and  only  as  an  enq)iriclst.  At  least  tlie  great  and  sinq)le 
outlines  of  the  empirical  procedure,  pi-ovidcd  vision 
is  not  obscured  by  prepossessions,  appear  plain  to  the 


68  APPENDICES. 

so-called  sound  human  understanding  without  explana- 
tion. Such  an  understanding  is  precisely  what  the 
English  mean  when  they  dub  '  philosophical '  those 
natural  sciences  Avhose  laurels  do  not  permit  our  inves- 
tigators to  rest.  Buckle  hopes,  he  says,  'to  accomplish 
for  the  History  of  mankind  that  or  something  similar 
to  that  which  other  investigators  have  achieved  in  the 
natural  sciences,  where  occurrences  apparently  the  most 
irregular  and  contradictory  have  been  explained  and 
proved  to  accord  with  certain  unchangeable  and  general 
laws.  If  we  subject  the  processes  of  the  human  world 
to  a  similar  treatment,  we  certainly  have  every  prospect 
of  a  similar  result.' 

It  is  of  interest  to  notice  the  quid  -pro  quo  from  which 
Buckle  starts  out.  Can  any  one  '  who  believes  in  the 
possibility  of  a  science  of  History,'  as  he  himself  does 
and  as  he  is  certain  that  by  applying  the  method  of 
natural  science  he  has  established  the  propriety  of 
doing,  fail  to  notice  that  this  method  does  not  so  much 
laise  History  to  a  science  by  itself  as  it  places  it  among 
tlie  natural  sciences?  Other  sciences,  too,  such  as 
theology  and  philosophy,  at  the  times  when  their 
methods  passed  for  the  only  scientific  ones,  believed 
that  they  were  entitled  to  take  History^  and  nature 
under  their  jurisdiction,  but  neither  the  knowledge  of 
/  Nature  nor  that  of  History  was  thereby  advanced  in  the 
measure  intended  by  those  interested  in  orthodoxy  or 
speculation.  Is  tliere,  then,  never  more  than  one  way, 
one  method  of  knowledge  ?  Do  not  its  methods  in- 
cessantly vary  according  to  their  objects,  like  the  organs 
of  sense  with  the  different  foi-ms  of  sensuous  perception, 
and  like  orijans  in  ijeneral  with  their  diverse  functions  ? 


TUK   ELEVATION    OF    JILSTOKY.  69 

'  Whoever  believes  in  the  possibility  of  a  science  of 
History,'  thinking  logically  and  according  to  the  nature  ' 
of  the  matter  in  hand,  as  we  do  in  Germany,  would 
certaiidy  never  undertake  to  show  us  the  justness  of 
this  belief  by  pretending  that  one  can  smell  with  the 
liands  as  well  as  touch,  digest  with  the  feet,  see  tones 
and  Ileal-  (•(»]( )i-s.  To  l)e  sure,  the  vibrations  of  a  string 
wliicli  the  ear  perceives  as  a  deep  tone  can  also  be  seen 
I)}-  the  eye  ;  but  the  property  of  these  vilnations  en- 
abling them  to  be  perceived  as  tone  does  not  exist  for 
the  eye.  It  is  a  fact  solely  for  the  ear  and  for  its 
peculiar  method  of  perception.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
dei)artmcnts  with  which  the  'science  of  History '  has  to  ^  V^ 
do,  tlu'i'c  is  niiK  li  which  is  level  and  accessible  to  natuial- 
scientiiic  method  also,  as  well  iis  to  various  other  forms 
of  scientilic  knowledge.  But  since  phenomena,  how- 
ever many  or  few,  since  points  of  view  and  relations 
remain  whicli  are  accessible  to  none  of  the  other  kinds 
of  knowledge,  it  is  clear  that  theie  must  be  for  them 
another  method,  special  and  particular.  If  there  is  to 
Im.^  a  'science  of  History,'  in  whieli  we  too  l)elieve,  this  ^/ 
means  that  there  exists  a  circle  of  phenomena  for  which 
neitlier  the  theological,  the  philosophical,  the  mathe- 
matical noi-  tlie  physical  manner  of  consideration  is 
adapted,  tliat  there  are  questions  to  which  speculation 
gives  no  answer,  whether,  tlieologically,  it  liave  the 
absolute  for  its  point  of  departure,  or,  philosophically, 
take  it  for  its  goal  ;  which  are  equally  unanswered  by 
that  em[)iricism  which  apprehends  the  world  of  i)he- 
nomenaby  its  quantitative  procedure,  and  by  any  disei- 
])line  ])ertaining  to  the  pmctical  departments  of  the 
moral  woild. 


70  APPENDICES. 

Our  founder  of  the  science  of  History  approaches  his 
task  with  enviahle  naivete.  He  considers  it  unnecessary 
to  investigate  the  ideas  with  which  he  intends  to  work, 
or  to  limit  off  the  department  in  which  his  hiws  find 
their  application.  What  science  is  he  thinks  every  one 
knows,  and  the  same  of  History.  Not  quite,  after  all, 
for  he  takes  particular  pains  to  state  what  it  is  not. 
He  cites  with  hearty  assent  Comte,  Philosophie  J^ositive, 
V.  p.  18,  who  remarks  with  displeasure  that  'it  is 
entirely  inappropriate  to  characterize  as  History  the 
piling  up  of  chsconnected  facts.'  How  memorable  is 
this  sentence  of  the  French  thinker,  and  how  instructive 
it  is  that  the  Englishman  appropiiates  it  to  himself  ! 
We  of  course  designate  as  'History'  that  infinite  suc- 
cession of  objective  facts  in  which  we  see  the  life  of 
men,  of  nations,  of  humanity  going  on,  just  as  we  em- 
brace the  totality  of  another  kind  of  phenomena  under 
the  name  of  '  Nature.'  But  pray  has  anyone  ever 
thought  that  a  collection  of  dried  plants  constituted 
Botany,  or  a  lot  of  stuffed  or  unstuft'ed  animal  skins 
Zoology  ?  Did  anyone  ever  suppose  it  even  possible  to 
collect  and  pile  together,  whether  in  an  orderly  or  in  a 
disordei'ly  way,  purely  ol)jective  facts,  such  as  battles, 
revolutions,  business  crises,  foundings  of  cities,  and  the 
like  ?  Has  '  the  guild  of  historians  '  actually  not  yet 
made  the  observation  that  objective  facts  are  a  different 
thing  from  the  manner  in  which  we  know  them? 

If  Buckle  really  Avished  to  kindle  a  light  for  us  his- 
torians groping  in  the  dark,  he  should  first  of  all  have 
made  it  clear  to  liimself  and  to  us  how  and  with  what 
right  '  History/  has  lieen  al)le  to  fix  itself  as  name  for 
a    definite    series    of   pluMiomena,  as   '■Natui'c*   lias  sue- 


THE   ELEVATION    OF    HISTORY.  71 

ceeded  in  making  itself  tlie  name  of  anotlier  detinite 
series  of  manifestations.  He  should  have  shown  what 
it  means  that  the  Avondeiful  alnidgei,  the  huiiian  spirit, 
apprehends  spatial  manifestations  as  Nature  and  tem})o- 
ral  oeeurrenees  as  History  ;  not  l)eeause  they  are  so  and 
so  distinguished  ohjectively,  hut  in  order  to  he  ahle  to 
grasp  and  think  them.  He  wouhl  then  have  known 
the  nature  of  the  material  ^ith  whieli  a  'science  of 
History''  can  have  to  do.  If  he  liad  heen  aware  what  '^ 
it  means  to  have  heen  an  em])irieist,  lie  would  not  have 
omitted  to  investigate,  as  the  nature  of  all  empiricism 
demands,  the  manner  in  which  these  materials  of  histor- 
ical investigation  lie  he  fore  us  and  our  sense-perception 
at  the  present  time.  Then  surely  he  would  have  had 
to  recognize  that  not  past  events,  not  the  infinite  confu- 
sion of  '  facts  *  which  constituted  them,  now  lie  l)efore  us 
as  materials  for  investigation  ;  that  instead  these  facts 
vanished  forever  with  the  moment  to  which  they  he- 
longed,  and  that,  a«  human,  we  possess  only  the  present, 
the  here  and  now,  with  the  impulse  and  ahility,  of 
coui-se,  hy  leai-ning,  insight,  and  will,  to  develop  im- 
measurahly  this  ephemeral  point.  He  would  have  seen 
that  among  the  processes  peculiar  to  the  realm  of  the 
spirit,  one  of  the  most  remarkal)lc  is  that  which  makes 
it  possihle  for  us  again  to  awaken  to  i)resent  reality 
events  which  are  forever  past  and  now  lie  heliind  us, 
and  to  make  them  live  in  our  minds,  that  is,  to  all 
luuuan  intents  and  purposes,  make  tlicm  eternal. 

If  Buckle   liad  wished  to  raise  us  and  himself  alnive 
his  thoughtless   use   of  the    word   'History,"   with  the    — "^ 
anticipations  which  arise  out  of  this  and  dim  our  vision, 
he  would  have  had  to  take  us  on  into  a  second  line  of 


72  APPENDICES. 

considerations.  In  occasional  intimations  of  his  we 
,  \j-  ascertain  that  History  has  to  do  with  the  '  actions  of 
men,'  that  it  is  connected  '  with  the  unsatisfied  desire 
for  knowledge  which  characterizes  our  fellowmen'; 
but  he  omits  to  tell  us  in  what  manner  these  actions  of 
men  are  of  an  historical  nature,  and  leaves  us  in  the 
dark  touching  the  character  of  the  questions  for  which 
the  curiosity  displayed  by  our  fellowmen  seeks  answer. 
It  does  not  require  deep  penetration  to  see  that  the 
human  acts  which  are  now  historical,  at  the  moment 
when  they  happened  and  in  the  minds  of  those  through 
whom  and  for  whom  they  happened,  had  only  in  the 
rarest  instances  the  purpose  or  determination  to  be 
historical  deeds.  The  general  who  gives  battle,  the 
statesman  avIio  negotiates  a  treaty,  has  quite  enough  to 
do  to  attain  the  practical  end  which  concerns  him  at 
the  moment.  So  on  down  to  the  minute  and  even  the 
minutest  '  acts  of  men ' :  they  all  fulfil  themselves  in 
that  inimitably  manifold  interplay  of  interests,  conflicts, 
businesses,  of  motives,  passions,  forces  and  restrictions, 
the  sum  of  which  has  been  well  named  the  moral  Avorld. 
We  may  consider  these  under  very  various  points  of 
view,  practical,  technical,  legal,  social,  etc.  One  of  the 
ways  in  which  the  moral  world  may  be  surveyed  is 
the  historical. 

I  decline  to  set  forth  the  full  bearing  of  these 
observations.  The  attentive  reader  will  see  that,  were 
this  done,  it  would  become  clear  how  History^  ( Ge- 
V'  '*  schichte)  emerges,  so  to  speak,  out  of  men's  doings 
(^Gesehaften).  We  should  also  thus  learn  of  what 
sort  and  nature  that  knowledge  is  which  is  based 
on  such    materials    and   applicable    in  such   a   realm ; 


THE   ELEVATION    (>F    HISTORV.  73 

wliat  it  can  and  cannot  do  ;  what  kind  of  fcrtainty 
it  is  in  condition  to  give,  and  what  kind  of  truth  it 
is  calcuhited  to  ascertain. 

Buckle  has  the  goodness  to  recognize  that  l)elief  in 
the  value  of  Jliston'  is  widely  extended,  and  that  liis-  ^J. 
torical  material  ha«  been  collected  wliicli  on  the  \\hole 
enjoys  and  connuancLs  profound  attention  and  respwct. 
He  depicts  in  broad  outlines  what  a  nia«s  of  investiga- 
tions and  discoveries  ha«  been  already  made  in  the  field  //^  /^ 
of  Histoij.  l»ut,  lie  adds,  -if  we  were  to  tell  liow(_y  'I 
little  this  material  has  been  utilized,  Ave  slK)uld  have  to 
sketch  quite  another  picture.'  How  little  it  lias  been 
utilized  !  Must  everything  therein  be  explored  before 
any  body  of  facts  is  a  science?  Is  the  astonishing 
depth  of  mathematical  knowledge  scientific  only  because 
the  surveyor  or  the  mechanician  can  use  one  or  two 
projjositions  from  it?  When  the  j)rophets,  to  warn  and 
l)unish  the  Israelites,  held  before  them  tlie  image  of 
themselves,  how  different  was  the  result  from  what 
followed  wlien  they  pointed  out  liow  the  God  of  their 
fathere  had  testified  to  them  '  all  the  way  from  Egypt.' 
When  Thucydides  wrote  his  Histoiy  yvith  its  '  peri)etual  // 
value  '  (^KTrjfjM.  cts  a« ),  ought  he  to  have  meant  by  this 
proud  i)hrase  the  artistic  form  in  which  he  wrote  and 
not  the  historical  drama  of  which  he  wrote?  Ruckle's 
reproachful  question  forgets  that  the  work  of  the 
centuries  is  the  entail  of  each  new  generation.  In 
what  else  does  the  civilization  so  highly  extolled  by 
himself  consist  but  in  the  summed  up  work  of  those 
who  were  before  us?  All  past  events,  the  whole  of  ^^"^ 
*  History,'  is  ideally  contained  in  the  present  and  in 
that  which  the  present   possesses.      And  when  we  bring 


74  APPENDICES. 

9  to  our  conseioiLsiiess  this  ideal  content  of  History  ;  when 

'  we  represent  to  ourselves  in  a  kind  of  narrative  form 

how  that  which  is  has  come  to  pass,  what  else  do  we 

I  »y-_  thus  do  but  employ  History  in  understanding  that  which 
is,  the  elements  in  which  we  move  as  thinking,  volitional 
and  active  beings  ?  This  is  the  way,  or  at  least  one  of 
the  ways,  immeasurably  to  extend,  enrich  and  elevate 
the  needy  and  lonesome  Here  and  Noav  of  our  ephemeral 
existence.  In  proportion  as  we,  —  I  mean  the  working 
races  of  men  —  ascend  higher,  the  horizon  which  we 
survey  is  extended,  and  with  everj^  new  point  of  view 
each  particular  element  thereof  displays  itself  to  us  in 
new  perspectives,  in  new  and  wider  relations.  The 
width  of  our  horizon  is  almost  exactly  the  measure  of 
the  height  reached  by  us  ;  and  in  the  same  measure  has 
the  circle  of  the  resources,  conditions,  and  tasks  of  our  ^ 

i  //        existence  extended.     History  gives  us  the  consciousness     ;  f  ^^ 
of  what  we  are  and  have.  •  {p^   I 

Here  is  a  connection  of  thought,  it  is  worth  while 
to  notice,  whence  one  may  see  what  culture  is  and 
what  it  means  to  us.  Goethe  says :  '  What  thou 
hast  inherited  from  thy  ancestors,  earn  in  order  to 
possess  it.'  AVe  find  here  the  justification  of  tliis 
obscure  utterance.  However  high  may  be  the  position 
of  the  age  or  of  the  nation  into  which  we  individuals 
are  born,  however  great  or  full  the  inheritance  accruing 
to  our  advantage  without  our  cooperation,  so  long  as 
we  have  not  gained  it  through  our  own  efforts  and  have 
not  recognized  it  as  that  which  it  is,  the  result  of  in- 
cessant toil,  on  the  part  of  those  who  were  before  us, 
we  hold  it  as  if  we  had  it  not.  Now  culture  means 
that  Ave  have  lived  and  toiled  through  over  again,  as  a 


TIIK    i;i,i:\A'll«>N    OK    HIST(»|:V.  (i) 

coiitinnalioii,  tlial  Avliieli  has,  in   the   History  of  times,    ji^ 
pL'oph's  and  liuiiiaiiity,  heen  wiouglit  out  in  men's  spirit 
in   the  way  of  tliought.      Civilization  is  satisfied  only 
with  the  results  of  ^■n\U\jj^''^nik\  utmost  fullness  of 
mere  Avealth,  it  is  poor,  blase  with  opulence  of  enjoyment. 

After  liuckle  has  eonn)lained  how  little  the  rich  and 
ever-gro\\  ing  'mass  of  facts'  has  liitherto  been  utilized, 
he  assigns  as  a  reason  explaining  this  phenomenon  a 
'  peculiarly  unfortunate  circumstance.'  '  In  all  tlie 
other  great  departments  of  investigation,'  he  says,  'the 
necessity  of  generalization  is  admitted  by  eveiy  one,  ^ 
and  we  meet  with  noble  exertions,  based  on  specific 
facts,  to  reveal  the  laws  under  whose  rule  the  facts 
stand.  Historians  on  the  contrary  are  so  far  from 
making  this  procedure  their  own  lis  to  be  dominated  by 
the  strange  thought  that  their  Ijusiness  is  solely  to 
recount  tmnsactions,  enlivening  these  at  the  utmost 
witli  appropriate  moral  and  political  remarks.' 

A  certain   patience  is  necessary  to  follow  these  repe- 
titious  trivialities  and    this   confusion    of    ideas   which      ^ 
chase  each  other  around    in   a  circle.      Generalizations  1       y 
then  are  the  laws  which   Buckle  seeks.      He  thinks  it[/^ 
possible  in  the  way  of  generalization  to  find  the  laws 
wliidi  shall  reveal,   tliat  is,   determine  with  necessity, 
the  plicnoniciia  of  tlic  moral  world.      Tlicii  aic  the  rules 
of  a  language   linguistic   laws:'      To  be  sure,  induction 
sums  up  particulars  into  the  general  fact  ;   not,  however, 
simply    l)y    arriving    at    a  generality    ha}>-liazard,    l)ut 
by    combining    particnlai-s     in     that    which    is    really 
common  to  them.      But  to  proceed  from  the  rule  to  the 
law,  to  find  the  ground  for  the  general  phenomenon, 
there    is    need   of    analytical    procedure.      Buckle    does 


76  APPENDICES. 

not  consider  it  necessaiy  to  give  himself  and  us  any 
account  of  the  logic  of  his  investigation.  He  satisfies 
liimself  with  setting  aside  a  '  preliminary  hinth-ance ' 
which  seems  to  block  his  way.  '  It  is  supposed,'  says 
he,  'that  there  is  in  human  things  something  provi- 
dential and  mysterious,  which  makes  them  impervious 
to  our  investigation  and  will  conceal  from  us  forever 
their  future  course.'  He  meets  this  difficulty  with  the 
'  simple '  alternative  :  '  Are  the  acts  of  men  and 
hence  also  of  society  subject  to  definite  laws,  or  are 
they  the  result  either  of  accident  or  of  supernatural 
influence  ? '  Certainly  :  if  this  cloud  is  not  a  camel, 
it  is  either  a  Aveasel  or  a  whale. 

We  have  already  remarked  that  if  there  is  to  be  a 
science  of  History,  this  must  have  its  own  method  of  dis- 
covery and  relate  to  its  own  department  of  knowledge. 
If  in  other  fields  induction  or  deduction  has  rendered 
excellent  results,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  science  of 
History  must  employ  exclusively  the  one  or  the  other  of 
those  methocLs.  Fortunately  there  are  between  heaven 
and  eai'th  things  related  as  irrationally  to  deduction  as 
to  induction  ;  which  demand  deduction  and  synthesis 
along  with  induction  and  analytical  treatment ;  which 
are  grasped  by  being  subjected  alternately  to  both 
procedures  ;  which  even  then  are  not  entirely  compre- 
hended, but  more  and  more,  not  exhaustively  but  ap- 
proximately and  in  a  certain  way  ;  tldngs  Avhich  demand 
not  to  be  '  developed '  or  '  explained '  but  understood. 

The  'desire  for  knowledge  which  characterizes  our 
fellow  men '  is  '  insatiable '  because  whatever  it  brings 
to  us  is  rationally  comprehensible,  and  because  with  our 
growing  understanding  of  man  and  of  wliat  exists  and 


THE    ELEVATION    OF    lUSTOUY.  77 

develops  in  a  liiimaii  fasliioii,  that  wliieli  is  most  truly 
our  own  beetmies  Avider,  deeper,  freer,  indeed  only  then 
becomes  oui-s.  Certain  as  it  is  tliat  we  human  beings 
also  weave  our  lives  into  the  general  mutiition  of  matter, 
and  correct  Jis  it  may  be  that  every  individual  tempora- 
rily comprises  and  has  for  his  form  of  existence  only 
just  such  and  such  atoms  out  of  'eternal  matter,' 
e(iually  and  in  fact  intinitely  more  certain  is  it  that  by 
means  of  these  '  fleeting  formations '  and  their  forces, 
so  vital  after  all,  something  quite  unique  and  incompar- 
able has  sjirung  up  and  is  still  springing  up,  a  second 
creation,  not  of  new  materials  l)ut  of  forms,  of  thoughts, 
of  societies  with  their  virtues  and  duties,  in  a  word,  the 
Moral  World. 

In  this  lealm  of  the  moral  world  everything  is  acces- 
sible to  our  undei-standing,  from  the  most  insignificant 
love-story  to  great  state  transactions,  from  the  solitary 
mental  work  of  the  poet  or  the  thinker  to  the  im- 
nu'asurablc  cond»inations  of  the  world's  commerce,  or 
poverty's  struggle  so  l)eset  with  temptation.  What- 
ever exists  we  may  underetand,  inasmuch  5us  we  can 
apprehend  it  as  something  that  has  developed  from 
beginnings. 

It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  IJuckle  does  not 
so  much  leave  the  freedom  of  the  will,  in  connection 
with  divine  piovidence,  out  of  view,  but  rather  declares 
it  an  illusion  and  throws  it  ovei'board.  Within  the  pre- 
cinctij  of  philosophy  also  something  similar  has  recently 
been  taught.  A  thinker  whom  I  regard  with  pei"sonal 
esteem  says  :  '  If  we  call  all  that  an  individual  man  is, 
has  and  performs  A,  then  this  A  arises  out  of  a  -j-  a-, 
a  embracing  all  that  comes  to  the  man  from  his  outer 


78  APPENDICES. 

circumstances  :  from  his  country,  people,  age,  etc.,  while 
the  vanishingly  little  x  is  his  own  contribution,  the 
work  of  his  free  will.'  However  vanishingly  small  this 
X  may  be,  it  is  of  infinite  value.  Morally  and  humanly 
considered  it  alone  has  value.  The  colors,  the  brush, 
the  canvas  which  Raphael  used  were  of  materials  which 
he  had  not  created.  He  had  learned  from  one  and 
anotlier  master  to  apply  these  materials  in  drawing  and 
painting.  The  idea  of  the  Holy  Virgin  and  of  the 
saints  and  angels,  he  met  with  in  church  tradition. 
Various  cloisters  ordered  pictures  from  him  at  given 
prices.  That  this  incitement  alone,  these  material  and 
technical  conditions  and  such  traditions  and  contem- 
plations, should  '  exphiin  "  the  Sistine  Madonna,  would 
be,  in  the  formula  A^=a  -\-jc,  the  service  of  the  vanish- 
ingly little  X.  Similarly  everywhere.  Let  statistics  go 
on  shoAAing  that  in  a  certain  country  so  and  so  many 
illegitimate  births  occur.  Suppose  that  in  the  formula 
A^^  a  -\-  X  this  a  includes  all  the  elements  Avhich  'ex- 
plain '  the  fact  that  among  a  thousand  mothers  tAventy, 
thirty,  or  whatever  the  numl)er  is,  are  unmarried;  each 
individual  case  of  the  kind  has  its  history,  how  often  a 
touching  and  affecting  one.  Of  those  twenty  or  thirty 
who  have  fallen  is  there  a  single  one  who  will  be  con- 
soled by  knowing  that  the  statistical  law  'explains' 
her  case "/  Amid  the  tortures  of  conscience  through 
nights  of  weeping,  many  a  one  of  them  Avill  be  profoundly 
convinced  that  in  the  fornuda  A  =^(t  -\-  x  the  vanishingly 
little  X  is  of  immeasurable  weight,  that  in  fact  it  em- 
braces the  entire  moral  Avorth  of  the  human  being,  his 
total  and  exclusive  value. 


TEIK    ELKVATION    <>F    llISTOltY.  7i> 

No  intellio-ent  man  will  think  of  dcnj-ing  that  the 
statistical  mctliod  of  considei'ing  human  affairs  has  its 
great  worth;  l)ut  we  must  not  forget  how  little,  rela- 
tively, it  can  accomplish  and  is  meant  to  accomplish. 
Many  and  perha[)S  all  human  relations  have  a  legal 
side;  yet  no  one  will  on  that  account  bid  us  seek  for 
the  understanding  of  the  Eroica  ^  or  of  Faust  among 
jurists'  (U'linitious  conci'rning  intellectual  property. 

1  will  not   follow   IJucklc   in  his   further  discussions 

touching    the     -laws    of     nature,'    'mental    laws,'     the         

superiority  of  the  intellectual  over  the  moral  forces, 
and  so  on.  TIk;  essence  of  his  views  in  the  first  part 
he  sums  up  at  the  beginning  of  the  second,  in  the 
following  four  'generic  thoughts,'  which  ])ass  accord- 
ing to  liini  for  the  foiindations  of  a  History  of  Civilizar^^  ij 
turn.  '1.  Tlie  progress  of  the  human  race  depends 
upon  the  effect  with  w  inch  the  laws  of  phenomena  are 
investiirated  and  the  extent  to  which  the  results  of 
these  investigations  are  made  known.  2.  Before  such 
an  investigation  can  begin,  a  spirit  of  scepticism  must 
be  awakened,  which  tlu-n  in  tni-n  furthers  investigation 
and  is  furthered  by  it.  •'>.  The  discoveries  made  in 
tliis  maniu'r  strengthen  the  intluence  of  intellectual 
truths  and  weaken  relatively,  though  not  absolutely, 
the  intluence  of  moral  truths,  the  latter  being  in  conse- 
(pu'uce  less  subject  to  giowtli  and  development  than 
the  intellectual  truths.  4.  The  chief  enemy  of  this 
movement  and  hence  the  chief  enemy  of  civilization  is 
the  paternal  or  guardianship  spirit,  the  idea,  namely, 
that  human  society  can  not  prosper  unless  ita  affairs 

1  The  Sinfonia  Eroica,  of  Beethoven.  See  Grove,  Beethoveii's  Nine 
Symphonies.  —  Tr. 


80  APPENDICES. 

are  watched  over  and  protected  at  every  step  by  State 
and  Church,  the  State  teaching  men  what  to  do,  the 
Church  what  to  believe.' 

If  these  are  the  laws  in  which  'the  study  of  the 
History  of  humanity'  is  to  attain  scientific  elevation, 
then  the  happy  discoverer  is  truly  an  object  of  envy  in 
the  naivete  with  which  he  succeeds  in  deceiving  him- 
self even  for  a  single  moment  as  to  their  extraordinary 
shallowness.  Laws  of  this  sort  could  be  discovered 
daily  by  the  dozen,  in  the  self-same  way  of  generalizar- 
tion,  laws  none  of  which  would  in  depth  and  fruitful- 
ness  be  inferior  to  the  well  known  saying  that  the 
measure  of  a  people's  civilization  is  its  consumption 
of  soap. 

Bacon  somewhere  says  that  'truth  emerges  more 
readily  from  error  than  from  confusion.'  ^  The  con- 
fusion of  which  Buckle  is  guilty  is  obvious.  Because 
he  neglected  to  examine  and  sound  the  nature  of  the 
subjects  with  which  he  undertook  to  deal,  he  proceeds 
with  them  as  if  they  did  not  have  any  nature  or  char- 
acter of  their  own  at  all  and  so  did  not  need  a  method 
of  their  own;  and  the  method  which  he  does  apply  in 
this  department  so  foreign  to  it,  avenges  itself  by 
making  him  put  up  with  commonplaces  instead  of  the 
calculable  formulas  in  which  it  elsewhere  expresses  its 
laws  :  commonplaces  which  may  have  a  certain  pro- 
priety for  to-day  and  yesterday,  but  which,  in  face 
of  History's  milleniums,  in  face  of  the  great  social 
formations  of  the  middle  age,  of  beginning  Chris- 
tianity, and  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  world,  appear 
entirely  unmeaning. 

1  Cifiiis  em  erg  it  Veritas  ex  errore  quam  ex  confusione. 


THE    KLi:\'ATI()N    <)F    IIISTOIIV.  81 

If  Buckle  recognizes  the  great  work  of  the  human 
race  in  Histor}-,  how  coukl  he  help  asking  himself  the  *  .  / 
nattirt'  of  tliis  work,  out  of  what  material  aud  for  wliat 
ends  it  has  originated,  and  how  the  workers  are  related 
to  it?  Had  lie  doiu;  this  lie  would  —  for  it  is  worth 
M'hih'  to  pause  a  moment  owr  these  (pu^stions  ^ — -have 
recognized  that  historical  ^\■oI•k  emhraces,  in  respect  to 
its  material,  hoth  natural  data  and  historical  growths, 
and  that  each  constitutes  for  it  at  once  a  means  and  a 
limitation,  at  oiici'  condition  and  impulse.  lie  would 
have  noticed  that  in  this  department  the  method  of 
quantitative  phenomena  has  of  course  a  certain  appli- 
cability, and  that  where  we  have  to  do  with  the  great 
factors  of  bodily  existence,  of  natural  conditions,  of 
statistical  results,  our  branch  of  learning  will  accompany 
the  labors  of  exact  science  with  the  greatest  inteiest 
and  accei)t  its  s[»len(lid  j)ro(lncts  with  pleasure  and 
gratitude.  But  if  Buckle  had  been  mindful  of  the 
further  questions  referred  to,  he  would  have  saved  him- 
self from  tliinking  that  the  conclusions  arrived  at  in 
that  dej)artment  —  the  laws  ascertained,  as  he  thinks, 
in  the  way  of  general iy.;it ion  —  are  the  sum  of  History  //  /i^ 
and  -  laise  History  to  the  rank  of  a  science'  by  'ex-  /</ 
j)laiiiing'  its  phenomena.  This  exjilains  them  as  little 
as  the  l)eautif ul  statue  of  The  Praying  Boy  ^  is  explained 
by  the  bronze  out  of  wliich  it  was  poured,  the  clay 
which  foi-med  the  model  of  it,  or  the  fire  which  melted 
the  metal.  The  idea  of  the  image  that  was  to  be 
(to  T I  rjv  dvui)  was  neccssary,  as  'the  master  of  those 
who   know'    l(»ng    ago    taught,    and     this    was    in    the 

1  In  the  Old  Musiuni,  Hcrlin.  Ii  is  hclicvi'il  to  be  fmni  an  oriuinal 
of  the  time  of  Lysippns.  Fndt  ric  tlic  (iri-at  imirliasi'd  it  for  10,000 
Thnl.T  [S7,r,00].  —  Tr. 


82  APPENDICES. 

artist's  soul  before  the  ^^'ork  in  which  it  was  to  be 
realized  existed.  There  was  need  also  of  the  purpose 
which  the  statue  should  fulfil,  jierhaps  a  vow  to  the 
rescuing  god  whose  temple  it  Avas  to  adorn.  The  skilful 
hand,  too,  was  required,  to  put  together  the  motive, 
the  thought-image  and  the  mateiial  into  the  completed 
work.  Doubtless  the  bronze  as  well  was  necessary  in 
order  to  the  origination  of  The  Praying  Boy  ;  yet  it 
would  take  a  mean  civilization  to  appraise  this  wonder- 
ful work  of  art  only  at  the  value  of  the  metal  in  it,  as 
rfL-Buckle  does  with  History. 

Buckle  proceeds  not  a  whit  less  one-sidedly  than 
those  people  —  how  severely  he  censures  them  !  —  who 
explain  History  solely  from  the  motive  which  theology, 
for  instance,  ascribes  to  it,  or  the  religious  spirit  sur- 
mises as  dominant  in  it  ;  or  those  Avho  see  and  observe 
in  respect  to  any  work  only  the  deft  \^<je»c}iic]it~^  agents 
which  })erforni  it,  just  as  if  the  fates  \_G-eschlc1ce'^  did 
not  take  their  course  in  spite  of  the  good  or  evil  will 
of  the  })eople  through  whom  they  are  put  in  execution  ;  ^ 
or  those  who,  ahvays  on  hand  with  tlieir  ready-made 
static  ideas  and  doctrines  about  things  which  are  con- 
tinually developing  and  thus  criticising  themselves, 
always  just  know  and  know  better  than  any  one  else 
how  the  State,  the  C'luirch,  the  social  order,  etc.,  ought 
to  have  been  obliged  to  exist  and  develoji.  Each  of 
these  ways  of  viewing  things  is  in  itself  partial,  untrue, 
destructive,  even  though  eacli  is  in  a  sense  justified 
and  necessary.  '  Everything,'  teaches  the  ancient 
philosopher  just  referred  to,  '  everything  which  subsists 

'  Tlic  autlior  intended  a  play  upon  the  two  words  in  the  brackets, 
but  ill  iisiui;-  them  confuses  rather  than  clarifies  his  meaninic.  —  Tr. 


THE    ELEVATION    OF    HISTORY.  83 

l)y  the  ajrency  of  a  cause,  and  is  not,  like  the  divinity, 
self-snhsistent,'  contains  those  four  elements,^  no  one 
of  Avliicli  a-lone  and  by  itself  can  explain  the  wliole. 
More  precisely,  it  is  according  to  those  four  elements 
that  we  mentally  analyze  anything  for  ourselves,  for 
our  contemplation,  conscious  that  in  the  reality  which 
we  wish  to  consider  they  are  at  the  same  time  com- 
pletely one  with  and  jjermeated  hy  each  other.  We 
thus  separate  and  distinguisli,  altliough  aware  tliat  the 
process  is  only  an  aid  to  our  re-constructive  under- 
standing, while  certain  other  activities  of  our  soul  give 
and  receive  totalities  instantly  and  immetliately. 

Pardon  these  very  elementary  oUservations.  In  view 
of  Buckle's  confused  procedure  they  could  not  liave 
been  avoided  if  the  questions  involved  wei-e  to  be 
gotten  onto  a  safer  track. 

We  see  that  in  History  the  material  upon  wliich  it     /*/ 
works  is  not  the  only  thing  to  Ije  considered.     Close  to 
the  material   comes   the   form.     In   its   varydng  forms 
_llisti>i'y  has  a  ceaseless  and  ever  progressive  life.     These  'f 

forms  are  the  moral  partnei"ships  in  wliieli  we  become 
bodily  and  spiritually  what  we  are,  and  by  virtue  of 
which  we  raise  oui-selves  above  the  miserable  desolation 
and  indigence  of  our  atomic  egoism,  giving  and  receiv- 
ing in  order  tlius  to  Ijccome  the  richer  the  more  we 
bind  and  obligate  oui-selves.  These  are  dei)artments  in 
wliich  laws  of  an  entirely  different  nature  and  enei'gy 
from  tliosc  wliich  the  new  science  seeks,  have  their 
place  and  exercise  their  power.      These  moral  forces, 

1  RefeiTed  to  on  pages  81,  82,  viz.,  the  material,  the  form,  the 
movuig  cause,  and  tlie  end  or  final  cause.  The  thought  is  from 
Aristotle.  —  Tr.  ' 


84  APPENDICES. 

as  they  have  been  finely  termed,  are  to  a  great  degree 
at  once  factors  and  products  of  the  historical  life. 
Ceaselessly  developing,  they,  by  what  they  have  at 
any  time  come  to  be,  determine  who  shall  be  there- 
after the  bearers  of  their  completed  products,  and 
raise  them  above  themselves.  In  the  community  of 
the  family,  the  State,  the  nation,  etc.,  the  individual 
has  lifted  himself  above  the  narrow  boundary  of  his 
ephemeral  ego,  in  order,  if  I  may  so  speak,  to  think 
and  act  as  prompted  by  the  ego  of  the  family,  the 
nation,  and  the  State.  In  this  elevation  and  undis- 
turbed participation  in  the  activity  of  the  moral  forces, 
according  to  each  man's  character  and  duty,  not  in  the 
unlimited  and  boundless  independence  of  the  indi- 
vidual, lies  the  true  essence  of  freedom.  Without  the 
moral  forces  it  is  nothing  ;  it  is  immoral,  a  mere  power 
of  movement. 

Of  these  moral  forces  Buckle  certainly  holds  a  very 
low  opinion.  In  Church  and  State  he  sees  nothing  but 
guardianship  and  encroachments.  To  him  right  and 
law  are  only  Ijarriers  and  impediments.  The  con- 
sequence of  his  manner  of  view  would  be  not  so  much 
to  refer  the  child  to  the  care  and  love  of  its  parents  and 
the  discipline  and  guidance  of  its  teachers,  as  rather 
to  consider  it  by  and  for  itself  a  manifestation  of  sover- 
eign liberty. 

Buckle  arrives  at  such  an  extraordinarily  crude  idea 
of  liberty  because  he  neglects  proper  attention  to  the 
agents  engaged  in  working  out  History's  task  ;  because 
he  thinks  only  of  the  massed  capital  known  as  civili- 
zation, not  of  the  ever  ]iew  acquisition  which  forms  the 
essence  of  culture.     Moreover,  he  does  not  or  will  not 


THE    EI.EVATIOX    OF    HlSTUltV.  85 

see  tliat  in  that  vanisliingly  little  x  lies  the  whole  and 
the  only  Avoith  of  personality,  a  worth  which  is  not 
measured  ])y  the  circumference  of  the  sphere  in  which  it 
Avorks,  or  by  splendor  of  results,  but  by  the  fidelity  with 
which  a  man  administers  the  interests  intrusted  to  him. 

In  these  departments,  again,  there  are  laws  having 
an  entirely  different  power  and  inexorableness  from  that 
of  those  gotten  at  by  generalization.  Here  validity 
attaches  to  duty,  virtue,  choice  in  the  tragic  conflicts 
of  the  moral  ton-cs,  in  tliose  collisions  of  duties  wliicli 
are  solved  only  through  the  power  of  free-will,  and  in 
which  sometimes  freedom  can  be  saved  only  by  death. 
Or  are  these  things,  too,  set  aside  when  '  the  dogma  of 
ficc-will '  is  explained  as  an  illusion? 

liiickle  does  not,  to  l)e  sure,  go  so  far  as  to  reject 
that  dogma  of  free-will  because  of  any  assumption  of 
its  resting  on  tlie  proposition  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  si)irit  or  soul,  and  that  this  is  a  petitio  principii.  He 
does  not  conclude  with  those  who  explain  all  these 
imj)onderables,  like  undei-standing,  conscience,  will,  etc., 
as  involuntary  functions  of  the  brain,  as  secretions  of 
I  know  not  wliat  giay  or  white  matter.  Before  we 
believe  this  the  great  minds  who  thus  teach  must  dis- 
arm the  suspicion  that  these  doctrines  of  theirs  are  in 
fact  the  secretions  of  their  brains,  and  morbid  secretions 
at  that.  But  while  Buckle's  argument  against  the 
presence  in  us  of  free-will  is  ba,sed  mainly  upon  our 
'uncertainty  regarding  the  existence  of  self-conscious- 
ness,' he  must  either  jjermit  us  to  consider  his  own 
argument,  founded  upon  such  uncertainty,  as  uncertain, 
or  else  prove  that  he  can  argue  with(uit  the  existence 
of  self-consciousness,  that  is,  of  a  thinking  ego,  and 


86  APPENDICES. 

that  he  has  as  a  thought-automaton,  destitute  of  self- 
consciousness,  composed  the  work  by  which  he  intends 

jU  to  elevate  History  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  Nay,  not 
'intended,'  for  he  denies  the  will  along  with  its  free- 
dom. But  some  being  or  other  must  have  thrown  into 
this  thinking-mill  a  lot  of  facts  piled  together  in  some 
way  or  other.  The  mill  ground  the  grist,  and  the 
result,   '  a  swindling,   tricky,   subtle  sophism  entire,'  ^ 

4  ,        thus  ground  out,  became  the  new  science  of  History. 

In  spite  of  all  this  Buckle  recognizes  the  '  progress ' 

^H_  in  Histoiy,  and  is  unwearied  in  describing  it  as  Avhat  is 
most  truly  characteristic  in  the  life  of  man.  This  is 
certainly  very  thankworthy,  but  it  does  not  accord  with 
the  main  trend  of  his  views,  nor  is  the  thought  con- 
sistently carried  out.  If  there  is  progress,  the  direction 
of  the  movement  must  be  observed,  and  make  itself 
visible  to  him  for  whose  sake  it  exists.  The  method 
of  study  belonging  to  natural  science  is  in  a  different 
position  from  this  in  respect  to  the  point  of  view  under 
which  it  apprehends  phenomena.  The  changes  which 
it  observes  it  traces  up  to  the  equivalents  of  forces,  and 
it  sees  in  them  only  the  permutations  of  equals  and 
constants.  A^ital  phenomena  interest  it  only  in  so  far 
as  they  repeat  themselves,  either  periodically  or  mor- 
phologically. In  the  individual  being  it  sees  and  seeks 
only  the  idea  of  the  species  or  the  medium  of  material 
change.  Since  according  to  its  method  it  excludes 
the  idea  of  progress,  —  Darwin's  theory  of  development 
is   the   strongest   proof    of   this,  —  progress   not  in  its 

1  <r6(/)t<r/ua,  Kup/xa,  Tfjlfi/xa,  TratTrdXij/i'  6\ov.  The  quotation  is  from 
Aristoplianes,  Blnlft,  -toO,  4;]1,  wliere  tliese  epithets  are  applied  to  a 
person.  —  Tr. 


TlIK    KLKVA  ri(»N    <tl'    IIISTOUY.  87 

knowledge,  ])iit  as  an  element  in  that  which  it  wishes 
to  know,  it  has  neither  jjlace  nor  expression  for  the 
idea  of  piir[)Ose,  Init  leaves  it  out  of  account,  partly 
degrading  it  to  utility,  thus  leaving  open  Lessing's  old 
question,  'what  tlien  is  the  utility  of  utility?'  and 
l)artly  waiving  it,  under  forms  sneli  as  the  eternity  of 
matter,  evolntion,  etc.,  as  a  prol)h'm  for  other  methods. 
In  adducing  the  idea  of  progress  lus  a  fact  of  the  his- 
torical world.  Buckle  falls  into  a  paralogism  of  a  very 
striking  kind.  He  might  confess  that  historical  in- 
vestigation has  not  hrouglit  him  to  the  priinum  mobile^ 
that  hy  the  nature  of  enipirical  methods  it  is  unattain- 
able in  this  way,  and  that  it  cannot  even  l)e  adequately 
expressed  by  the  speech  of  science  with  its  conceptions 
and  way  of  thinking;  but  does  this  justify  the  con- 
clusion that  a  primiun  mobile  does  not  exist  save  as  a 
2)iece  of  our  error?  Are  there  not  various  other  forms 
of  knowledge,  other  methods,  competent,  ])erhaj)s,  in 
virtue  of  their  nature  to  treat  precisely  the  realities 
wliich  the  forms  and  methods  of  natural  science  decline 
and  decline  Jis  a  logical  consecjuence  of  their  point  of 
view,  and  which  the  historical  also  either  decline  or 
treat  inadecpiatel}?  'I'o  illustrate,  would  tliere  l)e  no 
sucli  thing  as  an  .Tsthetic  judgment  1)ecausc  no  such 
(Mtuld  be  airived  at  by  jurists"  piocedure,  or  no  legal 
I)rop(>sition  because  such  wa.s  sought  in  vain  u'stheti- 
cally?  One  who  maintains  that  progress  marks  the 
historical  world  may  lament  that  only  a  i)art  of  this 
movement  pt-culiar  to  humanity  is  open  to  our  view, 
and  tJiat  we  cannot  descry  the  cause  or  the  goal  thereof, 
but  only  the  fact.  But  will  he  be  satisfied,  and  can  he 
satisfy  that  deepest  need  of  the  spirit  to  perceive  and 


88  APPENDICES. 

know  itself  as  a  totality,  l)y  the  circumstance  that  one 
form  of  empiricism  shows  him  a  riddle  which  another 
does  not  solve?  After  recognizing  that  a  problem,  a 
riddle,  exists,  will  lie  declare  it  non-existent  because  he 
cannot  solve  it,  and  cannot  solve  it  because  while  the 
enigma  resides  in  the  sense  of  it  he  wishes  to  see  it 
solved  as  a  chai-ade,  as  a  woi'd-catch,  or  as  a  syllable  or 
letter  riddle?  Because  from  the  one  standpoint  of 
scientific  knowledge  a  certain  side  of  the  total  beinsr 
and  the  universal  life,  namely,  the  metaphysical  side, 
is  invisible,  being  situated,  by  the  old  play  upon  the 
word,  '  behind '  the  physical  ;  and  because  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  knowledge  differing  from  this  the  eye 
just  grazes  metaphysics  a  little  as  in  perspective,  must 
we  conclude  that  this  third  side  has  no  existence 
except  as  an  illusion  of  ours?  If  we  cannot  take  hold 
of  light  Avith  the  hands,  or  hear  it  with  the  ears,  does 
it  therefore  not  exist?  Is  not  the  fact  rather  that  the 
eye  is  made  sensitive  to  the  sun's  rays  in  order  that  by 
apprehending  the  light  it  may  make  perceptible  to  us 
what  we  can  not  seize  with  the  hands  or  hear  with  the 
ears  ? 
jf^  I  pursue  these  questions  no  further,  since  they  lie 
Tq  beyond  the  circle  of  thoughts  in  which  Buckle's  effort 
l^-,^.^)  found  a  scientific  doctrine  of  History  moves.  The 
Aiints  given  will  suffice  to  show  that  he  has  not  ap- 
proached the  task  which  he  proposed  in  the  way  that 
was  necessary  in  order  to  advance  it,  that  he  appreciates 
neither  its  compass  nor  its  dignity.  And  yet  his  task  has, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  outside  of  its  particular  significance 
for  our  studies,  another  which  is  more  general,  and  on 
that  account  l)egins   to   engage   the   attention,   of   the; 


THE    ELEVATION    OF    JllSTOlM'.  89 

scientific  world.  This  problem  appears  destined  to 
become  the  middle  point  of  the  great  discussion  which 
will  mark  the  next  imjjortant  turn  in  the  entire  life  of 
the  sciences.  No  one  can  consider  tlic  growing  estrange- 
ment between  the  exact  and  the  speculative  discij)lines, 
the  dissidcnce  between  the  materialistic  and  the  super- 
natural vit'W  of  the  ^\(lrld  which  gapes  wider  day  hy 
day,  to  be  normal  and  true.  These  o})})Osing  contentions 
demand  reconciliation,  and  this  nuist  be  worked  out  in 
connection  with  Buckle's  task.  For  the  ethical  world, 
the  world  of  History,  wliich  is  the  proljlem  of  that  task,  <2.- <<„ 
takes  pai't  in  both  spheres,  and  it  shows  by  every  phase 
of  human  existence  and  action  that  that  contrast  is  no 
absolute  one.  It  is  the  jx'culiar  grace  of  human  nature, 
so  happily  incomplete,  that  its  ethical  doings  must  be 
at  once  spiritual  and  corporeal.  Nothing  human  but 
has  place  in  this  dissension,  but  lives  this  double  life. 
The  opposition  is  reconciled  each  moment  in  order  to 
its  renewal,  renewed  in  order  to  its  reconciliation.  To 
wish  to  understand  the  ethical  or  historical  world  is  to 
recognize  finst  of  all  that  it  is  not  an  apparition  and 
does  not  consist  of  a  mere  mutation  in  matter.  Scien- 
tifically to  transcend  the  false  alternative  between  moral 
and  material,  to  reconcile  the  dualism  of  those  methods 
and  those  views  of  the  world,  each  of  which  insists 
upon  ruling  or  denying  the  otliei',  to  reconcile  them  in 
that  method  which  applies  to  the  ethical  and  historical 
world,  to  develop  them  into  the  view  of  the  world 
which  ha*>  its  basis  in  the  truth  of  hunmn  existence  and 
in  the  cosmos  of  the  moral  forces  —  that,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  the  kernel  of  the  problem  with  whose  solution 
we  are  concerned. 


90  APPENDICES. 


II.— NATURE.  AND   HISTORY. 

It  is  a  traditional  habit  to  apply  the  expression 
'History'  also  to  nature.  We  speak  of  'Natural  His- 
toiy^'  t>f  the  '  History '  of  development  in  organic 
existences,  of  the  'History'  of  the  globe,  and  so  on. 
What  else  was  the  Okenian  theory,  what  else  is  the 
Darwinian  theory,  but  emphasizing  the  historical  ele- 
ment, if  we  please  so  to  call  it,  in  the  realm  of  organic 
nature  ? 

Efforts  are  not  wanting  to  treat  History  according  to 
the  laws  which  have  been  ascertained  for  nature,  or  at 
least  according  to  the  method  built  up  for  the  natural 
sciences,  and  to  establish  even  for  the  historical  world 
the  doctrine  that  to  refer  vital  phenomena  to  physical 
laws  is  nothing  less  than  a  new  conquest  for  science. 
Forms  and  movement  in  the  sphere  of  the  historical  life 
have  been  characterized  as  'organic  developments,'  and 
their  laws  given  basis  by  means  of  statistical  calculation. 
It  has  become  customary  to  speak  of  '  natural  growth ' 
in  connection  with  these  departments,  the  phrase  being 
even  deemed  a  very  special  improvement. 

To  our  science  as  to  every  other  belongs  the  duty 
and  the  right  to  investigate  and  settle  the  conceptions 
with  which  it  has  to  do.  If  it  were  to  borrow  these 
from  the  results  of  other  sciences,  it  would  be  obliged 
to  accommodate  and  subordinate  itself  to  modes  of  view 
over  which  it  has  no  control,  perhaps  to  those  by  which 
it  sees  its  own  independence  and  right  to  exist  called 
in  question.  It  would  thence  perhaps  receive  defi- 
nitions  of   the  word   '  science,'    to  which   it  would   be 


NATUKE    AND    HlSTOliY.  01 

oblig^L'd  to  object.  The  circle  of  conceptions  belonging 
to  it  our  science  will  have  to  seek  for  itself,  in  its  own, 
that  is,  in  an  empirical  manner.  It  will  Ije  permitted 
to  attempt  this  because  its  method  is  the  method  of 
understanding.  It  proposes  to  undei-stand  terms  which 
language  and  usage  in  language  daily  employ  and  offer 
for  it  to  practice  upon. 

We  lind  in  our  language  the  words  '  nature '  and 
'history.'  What  is  meant  In'  'history?'  Every  one 
will  agree  that  the  idea  of  a  coui-se  of  time,  of  the 
tempoi-al,  instantly  connects  itself  Avith  the  word  when- 
ever heard.  Of  eternal,  that  is  of  timeless  tinners,  so 
far  as  wc  can  grasp  ideas  of  this  kind,  there  is  no 
history.  They  appear  to  us  a.s  historical  only  so  far  as 
they  enter  into  the  temporal,  be  it  through  revelation, 
or  in  their  effects,  or  in  the  belief  which  finite  minds, 
minds  standing  under  the  conditions  of  the  temporal, 
have  respecting  them. 

These  minds  exist  -after  the  image  of  God."  Tliey 
are  spirit  set  amid  tlu'  coiiditioiLs  of  finitude.  They 
are  countless  in  point  of  s})ace  and  in  ceaseless  develoi)- 
ment  in  i)oint  of  time.  The  present  which  belongs  to 
them  and  to  which  they  belong,  is  an  analogue  of 
eternity,  for  eternity,  which  we  do  in  it  know  from 
experience  but  infer  from  the  self-consciousness  of  our 
spiritual  l)eing;  is  tlie  present  as  we  have  it,  yet  thought 
without  the  limitation  in  \\  liich  we  have  it,  without  the 
change  of  coming  and  going  and  without  the  dimness 
of  future  and  pa,st.  Human  existence  is  Mind  under 
the  ban  of  finitude,  spiritual  and  sensuous  at  once  and 
in  an  inseparable  manner,  a  conti"ast  which  is  reconciled 
every  moment  in  order  to  its  renewal,  renewed  in  order 


92  APPENDICES. 

to  its  reconciliation.  Our  being,  so  long  as  it  is  itself, 
healthy  and  awake,  can  at  no  moment  be  merely  sen- 
suous or  merely  spiritual. 

Another  peculiarity  of  our  spiritual  nature  is  its 
power  of  self-vision,  the  ability  to  look  into  its  own 
depths  and  to  initiate  movement  within  and  from  itself 
as  if  its  outward  connections  were  not.  In  thinking, 
believing  and  observing,  the  mind  fills  itself  with  a 
content  that  in  a  certain  sense  lies  beyond  the  limits  of 
finitude.  Even  then,  though  it  now  touches  the  earth 
witli  but  the  tips  of  its  toes,  it  remains  still  under  the 
ban  of  finitude,  in  the  forms  of  conception  which  it  has 
won  and  developed  therefrom. 

What  occurs,  now,  if  the  spirit,  in  the  same  entirety 
and  power,  turns  to  the  outer  side  of  its  double-formed 
nature?  By  this  expression  I  do  not  refer  to  man's 
j)ractical  will  and  action,  but  to  a  phenomenon  of  his 
intelligence.  His  theoretical  procedure,  his  investi- 
gation and  discovery  in  practical  directions,  will  be 
conditioned  by  his  sense-life.  The  sensuous  side  of 
his  existence  does  not  bring  to  him  merely  as  to  a 
motionless  and  untroubled  mirror,  diversified  impulses 
from  the  separate  objects  perceptible  by  sense  ;  but, 
with  and  through  this  side  of  his  nature,  as  he  stands 
in  the  midst  of  the  finite  ol)jects  that  surround  and 
submerge  liim,  he  is  conditioned  and  moved  by  them 
and  driven  about  with  them,  so  that,  in  the  restless  dust- 
whirl  of  these  restlessly  changing  finites,  he  resembles  in 
all  but  a  single  particular  the  atoms  which  accompany 
him  in  this  tumult.  But  the  difference  is  after  all 
infinite,  for  by  virtue  of  his  spiritual  essence  man  has 
the  ability  to  be  like  a  fixed  point  in  this  confusion,  or 


NATUIJE    AND    lllSTUKV.  93 

at  least  in  liis  snvil  to  feel,  ai)[)i'L'heii(l  and  know  liimself 
as  such  ;  the  abilit}'  by  thinking  and  willing,  by  eon- 
sciousness  and  self-determination,  always  to  keep  mov- 
ing, in  no  matter  how  narrow  a  road ;  the  ability  by 
observing,  estimating,  and  comprehending  tliem,  to 
become  master  of  things  outside  himself. 

That  the  little  and  indigent  being  of  man  possesses 
and  uses  this  power  of  lordship,  lias  always  been  the 
riddle  of  contem[)lation.  With  naive  depth  of  view 
Genesis  says  that  when  God  had  created  all  kinds  of 
beasts  of  the  field  and  all  kinds  of  l)irds  of  the  heavens, 
'he  brought  them  unto  the  man  to  see  Avhat  he  would 
call  them  :  and  whatsoever  the  man  called  every  living 
creature,  that  was  the  name  tliereof.' '  Naming  was  the 
beginning  of  man's  mastery  over  things.  With  the 
name  a  sign,  a  spiritual  counterpart  was  provided  for 
every  creature  or  being.  They  were  *  then  no  longer 
merely  in  the  Avorld  of  outer  existence;  they  were 
transferred  to  that  of  thought,  into  the  mental  life  of 
the  human  creature  living  in  the  midst  of  them.  Each 
one  kept  the  name  given  it,  even  thoiigli  the  form  of 
the  manifestation  corresponding  to  the  name  once  im- 
posed might  by  nutrition  or  exhaustion,  or  by  repetition 
in  propagation,  re[)resenting  itself  variously  in  various 
vicissitudes,  change  never  so  nuich.  'i'he  name  was,  as 
it  were,  the  permaiu'ut  delining  essence  of  the  i)erpet- 
ually  changing  manifestations.  Tt  laid  hold  of  that 
which  was  constant  amid  the  change,  and  held  it  fast 
as  the  essential  thing. 

In  the  objective,  or,  more  correctly,  the  actual  or  ex- 
ternal world,  groups  of  phenomena  under  permanent 
*  Genesis  ii:  I'J. 


94  APPENDICES. 

names  are  before  us  in  infinite  variableness,  manifold- 
ness,  and  differences  of  kind  ;  but  the  mind  masters  tliis 
desolate  multifariousness  by  taking  that  which  is,  in  a 
way,  viz.,  essentially  and  mentally,  the  same,  and  combin- 
ing it  in  this  sameness.  As  to  their  objective  or  ratlier 
their  external  phasis,  things  are  simply  numberless  indi- 
viduals in  numberless  combinations  and  separations  and 
in  ceaseless  change  i  but  as  represented  in  the  human 
mind  they  stand  forth  fixed  and  classified  according  to 
their  similarities,  affinities  and  relations.  They  are  the 
ordeily  signs  and  counterparts  of  the  finite  things  chaoti- 
cally flowing  about  us,  of  the  confused  multitude  of 
changing  and  hovering  })henomena.  This  world  of 
names  and  ideas  is  to  the  mind  the  counterpart  of  the 
world  without.     For  us  it  is  the  truth  of  that  world. 

Thus  simplifying,  separating  and  combining,  regu- 
lating and  subordinating,  thus  creating  in  itself  a  cosmos 
of  representations  and  conceptions  over  against  the 
confused  world  of  finite  realities,  the  human  mind 
makes  itself  by  speech  and  thought  theoretically  master 
of  those  finites  amid  which  and  the  changes  of  which 
its  temporal  being  stands.  Every  human  being  goes 
through  this  anew ;  every  one  is  a  new  beginning,  a 
fresh  ego-creation. 

Each  becomes  this  l)y  learning  to  feel  and  apprehend 
himself  as  a  totality  within  himself,  by  seeing,  thinking, 
and,  so  far  as  in  him  is,  shaping  everything  that  is  re- 
lated to  him  and  to  which  he  is  related,  however  narrow 
or  wide  this  realm  may  be,  as  a  closed  circle  about  him- 
self as  its  middle  point.  He  can  do  this  by  that  gift  of 
combining  particulars  according  to  their  nature,  that 
restlessly  working  gift  of  simplifying  and  generalizing, 


NATUllE   AND   IllSTOliY.  95 

of  separation  and  eoiiiliination,  by  virtue  of  which  he  is 
continually  embracing  wider  stretches,  taking  them  up 
into  his  representation  and,  as  it  were,  building  tliem 
into  his  mind.  The  rose,  one  word  for  countless  par- 
ticular attributes,  lie  distinguishes  from  the  pink,  but, 
fixing  upon  what  is  similar  in  the  two,  he  calls  both 
flowers.  He  makes  plants  of  them  both,  as  he  does  of 
the  bushes  and  the  grasses.  Plants  he  sees  to  be  (][uite 
different  from  animals,  yet  plants  and  animals  arise, 
grow,  and  die  in  a  similar  manner.  This  life  of  theire 
distinguishes  for  him  the  organic  world  in  contrast  with 
stone,  sea,  flame,  and  so  on.  He  thus  develops  and 
applies  more  and  more  comprehensive  forms,  more  and 
more  general  ideas. 

The  last  and  most  universal  of  these  classifications 
among  things  perce^jtible  by  the  senses,  are  Nature  and 
History.  They  comprehend  the  world  of  phenomena 
under  the  two  most  inclusive  representations  ever  aj)- 
applied,  rei)resentations  which  have,  perhaps  wrongly, 
Ijeen  complimented  by  the  title  of  intuitions  a  priori. 
We  are  certain  to  embrace  the  totality  of  phenomena  if 
we  think  f)f  them  as  arranged  for  us  in  space  and  time, 
or  in  other  words  if  we  say  Nature  and  History. 

Obviously,  whatever  is  in  space  is  also  in  time,  and 
vice  verm.  The  things  of  the  empirical  world  exist 
neither  s[)atially  nor  tem})orally  ;  but  we  apprehend  them 
so  according  as  the  one  or  the  other  element  apjjcars 
to  us  to  preponderate,  or  according  as  we  see  occasion 
to  exalt  the  one  or  the  other  as  the  more  weighty  or 
essential  characteristic. 

Of  coui-se  not  nuich  is  said  when  we  have  thus  defined 
the  wonl  t  history '  and  its  conception,  unless  we  are  in 


96  APPENDICES. 

condition  to  search  the  notion  more  deeply.  Space  and 
time  are  the  widest,  that  is  the  most  empty  representa- 
tions of  our  mind.  They  obtain  a  content  only  in  the 
measure  in  which  we  determine  them  lengthwise  and 
crosswise,  as  to  both  succession  and  propinquity.  This 
means  distinguishing  the  particulars  within  them  :  not 
merely  saying  that  they  are,  but  what  they  are. 

That  these  phenomena  which  we  summarily  embrace 
as  History  and  Nature,  in  themselves  possess  other  de- 
terminations and  predicates  than  just  being  or  being 
distinguished  in  time  and  space,  we  know  by  the  fact 
that  we  ourselves,  as  to  our  sensuous  existence,  stand  in 
the  midst  of  them,  are  determined  b}^  them  and  are  re- 
lated in  one  way  and  another  to  them.  That  is,  we  have 
empirical  knowledge.  Without  this,  space  and  time 
would  be  to  us  an  empty  x,  and  the  world  of  phenomena 
would  remain  to  us  a  chaos.  Only  as  we,  while  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  them,  separate  them  from  ourselves, 
relate  ourselves  to  them  with  the  different  sides  and 
susceptibilities  of  our  sensuous  existence  affected  by 
now  these  now  those  exponents,  and  according  to  these 
exponents  distinguish  and  compare  them  with  each 
other  ;  only  thus,  in  our  ego,  through  our  cognition,  in 
our  knowledge,  does  what  exists  in  space  and  time  re- 
ceive wider  denominations  and  determinations.  Only 
thus  do  the  em})ty  generalities  of  space  and  time,  the 
empty  catch-alls  of  Nature  and  History  develop  them- 
selves for  us  into  a  discrete  content,  into  definite  series 
of  ideas,  into  particular  beings  existing  in  synthesis  and 
succession. 

Space  and  time  are  related  like  repose  and  restless- 
ness, indolence  and  haste,  bondage  and  freedom.    They 


NATURE    AND    HISTORY.  07 

are  contrasted  yet  always  bound  together,  inseparable 
yet  always  ^vrestling  with  each  other.  For  everything 
is  in  motion.  The  consciousness  of  our  life,  of  our 
mental  and  sensuous  existence,  which,  though  polarized 
thus  in  itself,  is  neither  purely  sensuous  nor  purely 
mental  nor  shifting  between  the  two,  but  is  the  living 
unity  of  the  two  sides,  gives  us  the  idea  of  movement 
and  of  its  elements,  space  and  time.  If  it  were  destitute 
of  motion  the  world  of  phenomena  would  be  incompre- 
hensible to  us.  Were  we  without  motion  in  ourselves 
we  should  not  be  in  condition  to  grasp  that  world.  By 
being  in  motion,  as  ourselves  are  witliin,  the  world 
without  us  permits  us  to  undei"stand  it  under  the  anal- 
ogy of  that  which  is  going  on  in  ourselves. 

While  space  and  time  are  ever  united  in  motion, 
time  strives  as  it  Avere  to  overcome  indolent  space  in 
ever  new  motion,  and  motion  is  all  tlic  time  trjdng  to 
sink  back  again  out  of  the  impatience  of  time  into  the 
repose  of  l)eing,  broadening  its  area  by  lowering  its  rate. 
How  comes  it  then  that  human  observation  construes 
certain  series  of  phenomena  in  the  restless  movement 
of  things  more  according  to  their  temporal  side,  and 
others  more  according  to  their  spatial,  taking  the  one 
set  as  Nature,  the  other  as  History? 

We  certainly  see  constant  motion  and  constant  change 
all  about  us  ;  but  we  separate  off  certain  phenomena  in 
which  tlie  temporal  element  recedes,  in  which  it  appeai-s 
only  transitorily,  as  it  were,  in  order  to  sink  back  into 
itself :  phenomena  Avhich  in  essence  repeat  themselves, 
in  which  the  endless  succession  of  time  is  luoken  up 
into  recurring  cycles  or  periods  of  equal  length.  A 
formation  results  which  is  'characterized  bv  unity,  not 


98  APPENDICES. 

numerically  but  in  nature  or  kind.'  In  such  phe- 
nomena the  mind  lays  hold  of  the  constant,  that  which 
abides  in  the  midst  of  change,  that  to  which  motion 
relates  :  the  rule,  the  law,  the  substance,  that  which 
fills  space,  etc.  For  it  is  the  forms  that  repeat  them- 
selves here,  and  the  immaterial  character  of  their  peri- 
odical return  lowers  the  temporal  element  in  their 
motion  to  a  secondary  place,  not  indeed  in  relation  to 
their  being  but  as  regards  our  apprehension  and  under- 
standing. This  is  the  way  in  which  we  win  for  the 
general  notion  of  space  its  discrete  content,  and  it  is 
this  content  which  is  embraced  by  us  in  the  designation 
'  Nature.' 

In  other  phenomena  our  mind  emphasizes  the  change 
in  that  which  abides  the  same.  It  notices  that  here 
motion  results  in  ever  new  forms,  formations  so  new 
and  so  determinative  that  the  material  substrate  on 
which  they  a})pear  seems  like  a  secondary  element, 
while  every  new  form  is  individuall}^  cUffei-ent  from  the 
others,  so  different  indeed  that  each,  as  it  assumes  its 
place  after  its  predecessor,  is  conditioned  l)y  it,  gi'ows 
out  of  it,  ideally  takes  it  up  into  itself,  yet  wlien  grown 
out  of  it  contains  and  maintains  it  ideally  in  itself.  It 
is  a  continuity,  in  which  everything  that  precedes  trans- 
plants itself  into  what  is  later,  filling  it  out  and  extending 
it  as  '  a  contribution  to  itself ;'  ^  while  the  latter  pre- 
sents itself  as  a  result,  fulfilment,  and  enlargement  of 
the  earlier.  It  is  not  the  continuity  of  a  circle  that 
returns  into  itself,  of  a  period  repeating  itself,  but  that 
of  an  endless  succession,  and  this  in  such  wise  that  in 
every  new  a  further  new  has  its  germ  and  the  assurance 

1  iwidocTLS  ils  avrd.     See  page  10. 


NATURE   AND   HISTORY.  99 

of  working  itself  out.  For  in  every  new  the  entire 
series  f)f  past  forms  is  ideally  summed  up,  and  every 
one  of  them  a|)i)eai-s  as  element  and  temporary  ex- 
pression in  the  growing  sum.  In  this  restless  succession, 
in  this  continuity  advancing  upon  itself,  the  general 
notion  of  time  wins  its  discrete  content,  wliich  we 
designate  by  the  expression  'History.' 

Even  those  phenf)mena  which  we  gather  under  the 
expression  'Nature'  exist  in  individual  forms,  separate 
from  each  other,  tliat  is  if  we  appi'ehend  them  also  ;us 
liomogeneous  and  similar.  Out  of  ever}'  wheat-keinel, 
if  it  is  not  withdrawn  from  its  periodic  life  l)y  a  different 
apijlication,  as  germination,  stalk-growth,  flower,  ripen- 
ing of  tlie  fruit,  there  grows  an  individually  diffei'ent 
stalk,  a  new  generation  of  kernels.  The  oaks  in  the 
same  wood,  though  sprung  each  like  its  neighljor  out  of 
the  acorns  perhaps  of  the  same  maternal  oak,  are  indi- 
vidually different  not  only  in  space  but  also  in  age,  size, 
ramification,  grouping  of  the  masses  of  foliage,  etc. 
We  indeed  perceive  the  thfferences,  but  they  appear  to 
us  as  not  essential.  Scientifically  as  practically,  their 
individuality  is  inunaterial  to  us.  Among  existences 
of  this  kiud  our  mind  has  no  special  category  for  indi- 
viduals. For  lliis  kiud  of  individuals  we  have  no  other 
name  than  that  of  their  species.  We  of  course  notice 
that  they  change,  but  in  the  simply  periodical  return  of 
their  changes  they  have  for  us  no  history.  We  iiuleed 
distinguish  the  individuals,  l)ut  tlieir  differences  show  us 
no  succession  of  formations  advancing  one  upon  another. 
We  apprehend  them  according  to  space,  material,  the 
permanent  in  change,  the  indifference  of  self-repeating 
variety  ;   for  only  in  these  relations  lias  our  mind  catego- 


100  APPENDICES. 

lies  for  them,  and  only  according  to  these  categories  can 
we  grasp  and  understand  them,  or  relate  ourselves  to 
them  practically  or  theoretically.  And  according  to  these 
our  modes  of  apprehension  we  use  and  consume  them, 
taking  them  for  that  which  they  are  to  us.  We  sow 
these  wheat-kernels  and  care  for  these  oaks,  in  order  in 
their  time  to  kill  them  and  consume  them  as  what  they 
are  to  us,  coml^ustible  material  or  farinaceous  fruit. 
We  rear  these  animals,  in  order  daily  to  rob  them  of 
the  milk  provided  for  their  young,  and  finally  to  slay 
them.  And  so  on.  We  unweariedly  observe  and  in- 
vestigate in  order  to  know  Nature  according  to  its 
materials,  forces  and  laws,  that  we  may  apply  it  to  our 
ends  according  to  the  categories  under  which  we  appre- 
hend and  comprehend  it.  It  is  for  us  nothing  but 
material.  In  its  individual  manifestations  we  find  it 
sealed,  incomprehensible,  indifferent. 

And  when,  in  grafting  fruit  trees,  rearing  animals, 
and  crossing  breeds,  in  order  to  produce  nobler  results, 
we  play  as  it  were  the  part  of  Providence,  it  is  our  cun- 
ning and  calculation,  not  any  understanding  on  the  part 
of  those  creatures,  that  brings  us  such  results.  When 
we  analyze  or  compound  bodies  chemically,  or  treat 
them  physically  so  or  so  to  isolate  certain  of  their  func- 
tions in  order  to  observe  these  or  to  make  them  produce 
effects,  we  do  not  seek  or  find  what  is  individually 
characteristic  of  this  stone,  this  flame,  this  vibrating 
chord,  but  what  is  characteristic  of  genus  or  sj)ecies. 
And  when  we  appropriate  and  apply,  sesthetically,  for 
instance,  the  temporary  forms  which  the  animal  or  the 
plant  world  or  the  landscape  offers  us,  we  well  know 
that    it    is   not  the   individuality  of   this  piece   of  the 


NATURE   AND   HISTORY.  101 

earth's  surface,  of  this  tree  or  animal,  which  we  wish 
undei-stood  and  represented  thereby ;  but  that  we  put 
something  into  them  wliich  is  not  in  them,  something 
quite  remote  fi'om  them,  in  fact,  so  that  these  items  of 
nature  serve  us  only  as  expressions  of  our  feeling  or 
tliought,  we,  so  to  speak,  anthropomorphising  them  ;  a« 
in  Dante's  Purgatory  the  loatksome  picture  of  lust  be- 
comes under  tlie  passionate  glance  of  the  man  surveying 
it  in  desire,  a  woman  blooming  in  l)eauty. 

Also  in  the  moral  world,  in  the  realm  of  those  reali- 
ties which  we  call  History,  there  are  elements  whicli 
can  be  meiusured,  weighed  and  calculated.  But  these 
material  conditions  by  no  means  exhaust  the  life  of  the 
moral  world,  or  suthce  to  explain  it ;  and  whoever 
tliinks  that  he  can  explain  it  in  this  manner  overlooks 
or  di'iiies  that  wliicli  is  here  essential.  The  sexual  im- 
l)ulse  does  not  exliaust  or  explain  the  moral  miglit  of 
marriage.  Common  remembrance  of  common  experi- 
ences, j)ossession  of  common  hopes  and  cares,  losses  and 
successes,  renew  again  even  for  couples  who  are  growing 
old,  tlie  warmth  of  tlieir  first  1)liss.  For  them  their  mar 
riage  lias  a  history.  In  tliis  liistory  its  moial  miglit  was 
founded  for  tliem.  and  it  is  justitied  and  fulfilled  in  and 
by  the  same. 

In  the  moral  univci-se  there  is  certainly  nothing 
which  may  not  be  subject  directly  or  indirectly  to  mate- 
rial conditions,  thougli  the  material  conditions  are  not 
the  only  ones  operative  or  detenninative  in  this  realm. 
The  nobility  of  our  moral  Innng  consists  in  tlie  fact  that 
it  does  not  in  any  way  deny  or  faLsely  estimate  its  envi- 
ronment, but  rather  in  fact  illuminates  and  spiritualizes 
this.     It  is  thus  that  the  contact   of  minds  in  their  Moik 


102  APPENDICES. 

upon  and  with  one  another,  in  their  restless  impulse  to 
shape  things  and  to  understand  and  be  understood,  de- 
velops this  marvellous  stratum  of  spiritual  being  which 
enswathes  our  globe,  forever  touching  the  natural  world 
and  yet  free  from  it.  Its  elements  are  representations, 
thoughts,  passions,  mistakes,  guilt  and  the  like. 

It  does  not  imply  too  light  an  estimate  of  the  moral 
world  to  lay  it  down  that  this  restlessly  flowing  and 
swelling  stratum  of  spiritual  existence  is  the  habitat  and 
ground  of  its  formations,  the  plastic  mass,  so  to  speak, 
where  they  originate.  Such  formations  are  certainly 
none  the  less  realities,  or  of  less  power  objectively, 
because  they  essentially  live  only  in  the  souls,  hearts, 
knowledge,  and  consciences  of  human  beings,  and  em- 
ploy the  body  and  things  of  a  Ijodily  kind  merely  as 
their  expressions,  bearing  their  impress.  True,  they 
can  l)e  perceived,  understood,  and  investigated  only  in 
these  expressions  and  impressions  ;  but  they  do  not 
exist  merel}'  that  the  historical  method  may  be  applied 
to  them.  They  can  be  scientifically  surveyed  from  still 
other  points  of  view  than  the  historical.  They  are 
open  to  this,  for  what  they  are  they  have  become,  and 
to  make  out  the  envelopment  of  things  from  their  de- 
veloped forms,  and  their  developed  forms  from  their 
development  is  the  nature  of  the  historical  method. 

We  offer,  in  conclusion,  one  more  remark  to  parry 
/objections.  No  one  thinks  of  contesting  the  application 
to  physics  of  the  name  of  science,  or  of  doubting  the 
scientific  results  of  physical  research,  although  the 
science  is  not  nature,  but  only  a  manner  of  observing 
nature.  No  one  objects  to  mathematics  on  the  ground 
that  its  Avhole  proud  structure  stands  only  within  the 


NATURE   AND    HISTORY.  103 

kiiowini^  mind.  Dnr  shrewd  mother  toncrue  forms  from 
the  participle  of  the  word  '  to  know '  (^wisinen)  its 
descriptive  for  that  which  is  certain  (j/eivus).  It  does 
not  name  tlie  onter  and  so-called  objective  beinj^  of 
things  'certain,'  hut  l)eings  and  occurrences  considered 
as  'known.'  Not  Avhat  addresses  us  as  sensuously 
percepti])le  is  'true,'  according  to  our  language.  No" 
material  thing  presents  itself  to  us  as  '  true,'  ])ut  we 
'  take  it  true '  ^  and  make  it  certain  by  means  of  our 
knowledge. 

'■Our  perception,'  '•  oiir  knowledge  '  :  here  would  lurk 
the  most  dubious  sul)jectivism,  were  the  human  world 
composed  of  atoms,  each  filling  its  span  of  space  and 
time,  and  witliout  any  connection  from  beginning  to  end  ; 
or  of  atomic  men  as  exem[)litied  by  the  old  philosopher's 
plucked  cock,  and  by  the  view  of  man  which  modern 
radicalism  takes  as  the  starting  point  of  its  human 
rights,  and  modern  materialism  and  nihilism  for  the 
basis  of  their  'sociology.'  The  individual  as  such 
could  not  even  be  born,  to  say  nothing  of  being  cared 
for,  brought  up,  and  developed  into  a  human  adult. 
From  the  moment  of  his  birth,  and  even  of  his  con- 
ception, he  has  place  in  the  moral  partnerships,  this 
family,  this  nation.  State,  faitli  or  unfaith,  etc.,  and  it 
is  from  and  through  them  that  he  originally  receives 
whatever  he  is  and  has,  whether  of  bodily  or  of  s})iritual 
fortune. 

It  is  clear  that  the  scepticism  of  these  views  does  not 
go  to  controvert  the  reality  of  the  natural  world,  still 

^  Wakrnehmen,  literally  'to  take  as  true'  (wahr,  'true,'  and 
nehineii,  'take,')  is  in  German  psychology  the  technical  word  denote 
ing  '  to  perceive.'  — Tr. 


104  APPENDICES. 

less  the  actuality  of  the  historical  or  moral  formations. 
To  us  nature  is  not  a  ^phantom  of  the  brain.'  Even 
less  is  the  moral  world  the  threadljare  '  affirmation  of 
the  will  to  live.'  Practically  we  live  and  act  in  the 
confident  self-feeling  of  our  ego-hood,  and  also  in  the 
direct  apprehension  of  tlie  outer  totality  in  the  midst 
of  which  we  stand.  Tliese  are  tlie  two  elements  which 
result  from  the  character  of  our  being,  spiritual  and 
sensuous  at  once. 

On  this  immediate  certainty  with  which  we  cognize 
ourselves  and  the  world,  on  this  belief,  however  high  or 
low  the  expression  we  have  arrived  at  for  its  ultimate 
ground  or  its  highest  end,  is  based  our  liuman  existence 
and  activity.  This  immediate  reality  we  possess,  and 
we  go  on  to  search  for  and  work  out  the  truth  beneath 
it,  which  grows  and  deepens  as  we  search  and  work. 
In  the  poverty  of  our  ego-hood  and  ego-development  — 
and  this  is  present  and  irrepressible  with  our  first  spoken 
word  —  lies  the  pressure  upon  us  to  bring  to  our 
consciousness  what  is  perceived  and  believed,  to  com- 
preliend  it,  to  free  it  as  it  Avere  from  the  umbilical  cord 
which  attaches  it  to  the  immediate  realities,  and  arrange 
it  in  order  among  the  categories  of  our  thinking. 
These  categories  are  related  to  the  totality  of  the  actual 
things  which  we  immediately  perceive,  including  our 
ego-hood,  as  the  polygon  is  to  the  circle.  Never  so 
many-sided  and  similar  to  a  circle,  the  polygon  remains 
angular  and  bounded  by  straiglit  lines,  circle  and  poly- 
gon never  ceasing  to  be  mutall}^  incommensurable. 

It  is  the  mistaken  pride  of  the  human  mind  to  bolster 
the  circles  of  what  it  directly  apprehends  upon  its  own 
angular   constructions  as    their    norm    or   confirmation, 


ART    AND    METHOD.  105 

wliilo  ill  fact  these  constructions  are  onl}'  effort  upon 
effort  gradually  to  trace  a  line  outside  those  circles. 
We  deny  the  splierical  lines  of  faith  because  our  thought 
can  not  exliaust  them  with  its  right-lined  figures,  any 
more  than  that  hoy  of  Augustine's,  eagerly  as  he  might 
hail  with  his  shell,  covdd  dry  the  hole  which  he  had  dug 
on  the  si  lore,  when  the  sea  was  always  ready  to  pour 
over  into  it. 

III.  — ART   AXD   METHOD. 

Poetry  was  composed  l)efore  poetics  arose,  as  people 
talked  l)efore  there  were  granunar  and  rhetoric.  Prac- 
tical needs  had  taught  men  to  mix  and  analyze  materials 
and  to  apply  the  i)Owers  of  nature  to  human  purposes, 
before  chemistry  and  physics  had  methodically  investi- 
gated nature  and  expressed  its  laws  in  scientific  form. 

Recollections  also  belong  to  humanity's  deepest 
nature  and  needs.  However  narrow  or  wide  the  circles 
which  tliey  may  endnacc,  they  are  never  in  any  wise 
wanting  to  men.  In  the  liighcst  degree  personal  lus 
they  at  fii-st  appear,  they  yet  form  a  bond  between  the 
souls  which  meet  in  them.  No  human  comnuinity  is 
without  them.  Each  possesses  in  its  previous  life  and  ^'fi>) 
history  the  image  of  its  being,  a  comnion  possession  of  ' 

all"  j)ai'ticipants,  which  makes  their  relationship  so  much 
the  firmer  and  more  intimate. 

We  can  believe  that  the  memories  of  highly  gifted 
peoples  are  embellished  in  their  sagas,  and  become  types 
for  the  expression  of  the  ideals  to  which  the  spirit  of 
the  ])eoi)le  is  directed.  We  can  suppose  also  that  their 
faith  gets  for  them  its  l)asis  in  the  form  of  sacred  stories, 


106  APPENDICES. 

wliich  present  the  contents  of  it  to  the  eye  as  actual 
occurrences,  and  that  such  myths  grow  along  with  the 
sagas.  But  when  this  restlessly  living  fusion,  finally 
satiated,  comes  to  an  end  in  the  form  of  great  epics, 
myths  will  no  longer  belong  to  the  naive  faith  alone. 
^',^.  }W'L  '^^^^  earliest  history,  that  of  the  Greeks,  began  Avith 
/^  "^le  collection  and  sifting  of  such  myths  and  sagas. 
Theirs  were  the  earliest  efforts  to  bring  into  this  pri- 
meval forest  of  traditions  order,  connection,  agreement, 
a  chronological  system,  the  first  attempts  at  real  investi- 
gation.  From  the  Greeks  dates  the  continuity  of  the 
sciences.  Almost  all  of  these  which  busy  men's  minds 
to-day  had  their  beginnings  in  Greece.  Particularly 
the  field  which  has  been  well  designated  as  that  of  the 
moral  sciences  was  tilled  by  them  with  precUlection. 
/'-/,  But  they  have  no  treatise  on  the  Principles  of  History, 
no  *liistorics,'  to  accompany  their  ethics,  politics,  eco- 
nomics, etc. 

After  geniuses  had  historically  described  the  age  of 
Marathon  and  the  age  of  Pericles,  Thucydides  being 
the  last  member  of  the  galaxy,  it  was  left  to  Isokrates 
and  not  to  Aristotle  to  found  an  liistorical  school.  This 
lu  fact  di-ew  history  into  paths  from  Avhich  Polybius  vainly 
exerted  himself  to  bring  it  back.  It  became,  and  with 
the  Romans  it  remained,  so  far  as  philology  did  not  get 
/c>  )  1 1  possession  of  it,  a  part  of  rhetoric  or  heller  lettres. 
Between  the  two,  philology  and  rhetoric,  historical 
sketches  for  practical  purposes,  including  encyclopedias 
and  school  books,  gradually  sank  to  the  most  miserable 
dryness. 

We  come  to  the  middle  age.     Its  historical  work  is 
even  less  likely  to  betray  any  new  impulses  toward 


ART    AND    .MKTIIOI).  107 

scientific  thought  than  is  that  of  declininfr  anticiuity, 
unless  we  except  tlie  sense  for  theological  construction 
which  ths  middle  age  here  and  there  exhibits.  This 
judgment  is  true,  in  spite  of  the  fact  tliat  an  occasional 
historian  in  the  times  of  the  Carolinmans  and  the  Ottos 
sought  his  model  of  style  among  the  ancients  and 
tricked  out  his  heroes  with  their  rhetorical  flourishes. 

As  the  middle  age  drew  to  a  close,  the  renewed  strife 
against  the  papacy  and  the  hierarchy  seized  upon  his- 
torical investigation  as  a  weapon,  and  the  researches  in 
regard  to  the  alleged  donation  of  Constantine  were  fol- 
lowed stroke  after  stroke  by  historico-critical  attacks 
upon  the  false  traditions,  the  anti-scriptural  institutions, 
and  the  canonical  assumptions  of  the  Cluucli.  I^vcii 
then,  however,  in  these  important  scientific  onsets,  rhet- 
oric again  and  speedily  got  the  upper  hand  of  history  '  *^ 
This  occuiTed  fii-st  in  Germany.  The  last  magnificent 
attempt  on  the  German  side,  that  of  Sebastian  Franck, 
scientifically  to  collate  the  knowledge  and  practice  which 
had  been  won,  was  drowned  by  the  din  of  the  brawl,  so 
soon  grown  dogmatic,  between  the  creeds. 

Only  after  the  natural  sciences,  sure  and  conscious  of 
tlieir  way,  had  established  their  method  and  tl»erel)y 
made  a  new  beginning  in  scientific  thought,  did  tlie 
notion  emerge  of  finding  a  methodical  side  even  for  the 
Muethodless  matter'^  of  History.  To  the  time  of  Gal-  ^f.  ^'^> 
ileo  and  Bacon  belongs  Jean  Bodin  ;  to  that  of  Huygens 
and  Newton,  Pufendorff  and  also  Leibnitz,  the  thinkei', 
who  broke  paths  in  all  directions  at  once.  Then  the 
English  Illumination,  if  it  is  permitted  thus  to  name  the 
period  of  the  so-called  deists,  took  up  this  question.  To 
1  a/j^$o8os  v\ri.     See  page  62. 


108  APPENDICES. 

its  representations  was  due  the  first  effort  to  divide  our 
science  according  to  its  problems  or  departments.  They 
//^^^  spoke  of  the  History  of  the  World,  the  Ilistoiy  of  Hu- 
manity, Universal  History,  the  History  of  States,  of  peo- 
ples, and  so  on.  Voltaire,  the  pupil  and  continuator  of 
this  English  tendency,  contributed  to  it  the  unclear  de- 
signation 'phUosopJiie  de  V  histoire.''  The  Gottingen  his- 
torical school  developed  a  kind  of  system  among  the 
newly  created  sciences  and  associate  sciences  in  their 
field,  and  began  to  infuse  its  spirit  even  into  branches 
but  remotely  connected  with  History.  More  than  one  of 
the  great  poets  and  thinkers  of  our  nation  went  deep  into 
the  theoretical  question  of  historical  certitude  ;  and 
there'  developed  in  historical  labor  and  investigation 
itself  a  habit  of  sharp  and  certain  criticism,  which  pro- 
duced entirely  new  and  surprising  results  in  every 
realm  of  History  where  it  was  applied.  In  this  historical 
criticism  the  German  nation  has  ever  since  Niebuhr  out> 
stripped  all  others  ;  and  the  style  or  technique  of  inves- 
tigation maintained  in  the  splendid  labors  of  German 
savans  seemed  to  need  only  expression  in  general  and 
theoretical  propositions  in  order  to  constitute  the  his- 
torical method. 

To  be  sure,  the  great  public  was  not  at  once  served 
by  this  application  of  our  liistorical  toil.  It  wished  to 
read,  not  to  study,  and  complained  that  we  set  before 
it  the  process  of  preparing  food  instead  of  the  food 
itself.  It  called  the  German  method  in  history  pedantic, 
exclusive,  unenjoyable.  How  much  more  agreeable  to 
read  were  Macaulay's  Essays  than  these  learned  and 
tiresome  investigations  !  How  the  accounts  of  the 
French    Revolution    in    Thiers's    splendid    delineation 


AKT    AND    METHOD.  101> 

took  I  In  this  way  it  came  to  pa.ss  that  not  only  Ger- 
man historical  taste  but  German  historical  judgment, 
and  consequently  in  no  slight  degree  also  German 
political  judgment,  being  all  formed  and  guided  for 
three  or  four  centuries  by  the  foreign  style  of  making  /  / 
Jlistory,  were  dominated  by  the  rhetorical  superiority  of 
other  nations. 

Tliis  is  not  all.  While  such  rhetorical  art  takes 
ANcighty  and  tremendous  events,  with  the  diflicult  en- 
tanglements in  which  they  are  usually  wrought  out  or 
at  least  prepared  for,  and  sadly  metamorphoses  them,  as 
it  depicts  the  horror  of  men's  unchained  passions  and 
fanatic  persecutions,  the  false  representation,  though 
discordant  enough  artistically,  yet  has  a  tlnilling  and 
diumatic  effect  when  read.  Com})osition  is  certain  to 
be  so  much  the  more  comprehensible  and  pei"suasive  for 
being  of  that  kind.  It  is  able  to  make  even  the  less 
intelligent  reader  acquainted  with  things  which  in  their 
actual  course  demanded  from  the  contemporary  who 
wished  to  undei-stand  them  in  never  so  moderate  a 
degree,  a  thousand  points  of  previous  knowledge,  be- 
sides much  experience  and  a  calm  and  collected  judg- 
ment. Historical  art  knows  how  in  the  most  feUcitous 
manner  to  avoid  all  tliis,  so  that  the  attentive  reader, 
when  he  has  perused  his  Tliiers  or  Macaulay  to  the 
end,  is  permitted  to  believe  himself  the  richer  by  the 
great  experiences  of  the  revolutions,  party-wai-s,  and 
constitutional  developments  of  which  they  treat.  '  Ex- 
periences,' forsooth  !  when  they  lack  the  best  of  what 
makes  experiences  fruitful,  the  earnestness  of  actual 
men  hard  at  work,  responsibility  for  irrevocable  de- 
cisions, the  sacrifice  which  even  victory  demands,  the 


110  APPENDICES. 

failure  AA^hich  treads  under  foot  the  most  righteous 
cause  !  The  art  of  the  historian  lifts  the  reader  above 
thought  of  any  such  side  issues.  It  fills  his  fancy 
with  re})resentations  and  views  which  embrace  but  the 
splendidly  illuminated  tips  of  the  broad,  hard,  tediously 
slow  reality.  It  persuades  him  that  these  sum  up  all 
the  particular  events  and  constitute  the  truth  of  the 
realities  not  dwelt  upon.  It  helps  in  its  way  the  limit- 
less influence  of  public  opinion,  leading  people  to 
measure  the  reality  according  to  their  ideas  and  to  call 
upon  reality  to  form  or  transform  itself  accordingly. 
Readers  demand  this  the  more  impatiently  the  easier 
custom  has  made  it  for  them  to  think  of  such  a  reversal 
of  things.  We  Germans  too  already  boast  an  historical 
literature  answering  the  popular  need.  Among  us  as 
elscAvhere  the  insight  is  attained  or  the  confession  made 
/^,  that  'History  is  at  once  art  and  science.'  At  the  same 
time  the  question  of  method,  which  is  Avhat  we  are 
concerned  with  here,  is  falling  into  obscurity  anew. 

What  then,  in  Avorks  of  an  historical  kind,  is  the 

mutual  relation  betAveen  art  and  science  ?     For  instance, 

f^/^ .  is  the  fact  that  History  is  marked  l)y   '  criticism  and 

U  k"  *■  learning'  enough  to  give  it  a  scientific  character?     Is 

rs^y     ,   that  incumbent  on  art  Avhich  the  historian  ought  in  any 

1       '       event  to  do?     Should  the  historian's  studies  actually 

have  no  other  aim  than  that  he  may  Avrite  a  f cav  books  ? 

Should  they  have  no  application  but  to  entertain  by 

instructing  and  to  instruct  by  entertaining? 

,\j  '  History  is  the  only  science  enjoying  the  ambiguous 

fortune  of  being  required  to  be  at  the  same  time  an 

art,  a  fortune   Avhicli,  in  spite  of  Platonic  dialogues, 

not  even  philosophy  shares  Avith  it.     It  would  not  be 


AltT    AND    METIKJD.  Ill 

without  interest  to  inquire  the  reason  for  this  peculiarity  /v 
of  History. 

We,  however,  pass  to  another  side  of  the  question. 
In  artistic  labors,  according  to  an  old  manner  of  expres- 
sion, technique  and  Muses'  work  go  hand  in  hand.  It 
belongs  to  the  nature  of  art  tliat  its  productions  make 
you  forget  the  defects  which  inhere  in  its  means  of  ex- 
pression. .\rt  can  do  this  in  proportion  as  the  idea 
which  it  wishes  to  bring  out  in  given  forms,  upon  such 
and  such  materials,  and  with  this  technique,  vivifies  and 
illumines  all  these.  What  is  created  in  such  a  manner 
is  a  totality,  a  world  in  itself.  INIuses'  work  has  the 
power  to  make  the  observer  or  hearer  fully  and  exclu- 
sively receive  and  feel  in  a  given  expression  ^liat  that 
work  was  meant  to  express. 

It  is  different  with  the  sciences.  Particulaily  the 
empirical  ones  have  no  more  imperative  duty  than  to 
make  clear  the  gaps  which  are  based  in  the  objects  of 
their  search;  to  control  the  errors  which  arise  out  of 
their  technique  ;  to  iiKpiire  the  scope  of  their  methods, 
recognizing  that  they  can  give  right  results  only  within 
tlie  limits  essentially  i)ertaining  to  them. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  service  of  the  critical  school  in 
History,  at  least  the  one  most  important  in  respect  to  ^7 
method,  is  to  have  given  rise  to  the  insight  that  the 
groundwork  of  our  studies  is  the  examination  of  the 
'sources'  from  which  we  draw.  In  this  way  the  re- 
lation of  History  to  pjist  events  is  i)laced  at  the  point 
which  yields  a  scientific  rule.  Tliis  critical  view  that 
past  events  lie  before  us  no  longer  directly,  Imt  only  in 
a  mediate  manner,  that  we  can  not  restore  them  '  o]> 
jectively,'    but    can   only    fianie  out  of  the  'sources' a 


112  APPENDICES. 

more  or  less  subjective  apprehension,  \aew,  or  copy  of 
them,  that  the  apprehensions  and  views  thus  attainable 
and  won  are  all  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  knoAv  of  the 
past,  that  thus  '  History '  exists  not  outwardly  and  as 
a  reality,  but  only  as  thus  mediated,  studied  out,  and 
known,  —  this,  so  it  seems,  must  be  our  point  of  de- 
parture if  we  will  cease  to  'naturalize '  in  liistory. 

What  is  before  us  for  investigation  is  not  past  events 
as  such,  but  partly  remnants  of  them,  partly  ideas  of 
them.  The  remnants  are  such  only  for  liistorical  con- 
sideration. They  stand  as  wholes  and  on  their  own 
account  in  the  midst  of  this  present,  many  of  them, 
fragmentary  and  widowed  as  they  are,  instantly  remind- 
ing us  that  they  Avere  once  different,  more  alive  and 
important  than  now  ;  others  transformed  and  still  in 
Hving  and  practical  application  ;  others  changed  almost 
beyond  recognition  and  fused  in  the  being  and  life  of 
the  present.  The  present  itself  is  nothing  else  but  the 
sum  of  all  the  remnants  and  products  of  the  past. 
Furthermore,  views  of  what  was  and  happened  are  not 
always  from  contemporaries,  those  acquainted  with  the 
facts,  or  impartial  witnesses,  but  often  views  of  views, 
at  third  or  fourth  hand.  And  even  wlien  contemporaries 
tell  what  happened  in  their  time,  how  much  did  they 
personally  see  and  hear  of  what  they  relate?  One's 
own  eye-sight  and  hearing  embrace  after  all  but  a  part, 
a  side,  a  tendency  of  the  occurrences.     And  so  on. 

In  point  of  method  the  character  of  these  two  kinds 
of  materials  is  so  extraordinarily  different  that  one  does 
well  to  keep  them  separate  even  in  technical  nomencla- 
ture ;  and  it  behooves  such  as  wish  their  writings  to  be 
sources  to  name  their  sources  even  when  in  most  respects 


AKT  a:sd  aiethod.  113 

they  are  like  the  other  remnants,  heing  literary  remains 
of  the  time  in  which  they  arose. 

The  now  usual  method  or  technique  of  historical  in- 
vestigation wds  developed  from  the  study  of  times  which 
have  transmitted,  at  least  for  ])olitical  history,  nothing  ^-^ 
or  little  hut  the  sort  of  views  ahove  characterized,  from 
more  or  less  contempomry  narratore.  Mucli  for  wliicli 
we  sliould  like  to  seek  and  incpiire,  these  accounts  do 
not  touch  at  all.  To  the  question  how  our  emperoi-s 
when  they  crossed  the  Alps  on  their  journeys  to  Rome 
cared  for  thousands  of  men  and  horses,  to  the  question 
m  what  form  the  commerce  of  the  Mediterranean  was 
carried  on  after  the  revolution  which  Alexander  the 
Great  effected  over  all  Asia,  the  sources  give  us  no 
information. 

How  superficial,  how  unreliable  our  knowledge  of 
earlier  times  is,  how  necessarily  fragmentary  and  limited 
to  particular  points  the  view  which  we  can  now  gather 
therefrom,  we  become  conscious  even  when  we  study 
times  from  which  the  archives  offer  us  something 
more  than  the  'original  documents'  of  closed  pul)lic 
law  cases  ;  giving  us  diplomatic  reports,  reports  of 
administrative  authorities  and  state  i)apei-s  of  all 
kinds.  And  further,  how  vividly  prominent  in  sucli 
study  is  the  difference  between  the  '  views '  of  the 
foreign  anil)assadoi-s  or  of  the  domestic  authorities, 
and  the  remains  tliat  survive  of  the  actual  course  of 
diplomacy,  the  deliberations  back  and  forth,  the  proto- 
cols of  the  negotiations,  and  so  on.  Certainly  these 
state  documents  do  not  as  a  rule,  like  those  naiTations, 
lay  before  us  an  already  formed  idea  of  the  ca,se,  a 
preliminary  historical  [licturc  of  wliat  liad  just  liai)pencd. 


114 


APPENDICES. 


^A 


%f^ 


They  are  remnants  of  that  which  happened  ;  they  are 
pieces  of  the  transaction  and  of  the  course  it  pursued, 
which  still  lie  cUrectly  before  our  eyes.  And  if  I 
may  give  the  exj^ression  so  wide  an  application,  it  is  as 
a  'transaction,'  in  the  broad  maze  of  the  present,  con- 
ditioned and  conditioning  in  a  thousand  ways,  that  those 
events  come  to  pass  which  we  afterwards  apprehend 
successively  as  History.  We  thus  look  at  them  in  a 
quite  different  way  from  that  in  which  they  occurred, 
and  which  they  had  in  the  wishes  and  deeds  of  those 
who  enacted  them.  So  it  is  not  a  })aradox  to  ask 
how  History  (^CrescJiichte)  comes  out  of  transactions 
(^Greschaften),  and  what  it  is  which  with  this  transfer 
into  another  medium,  as  it  were,  is  added  or  lost. 

I  may  be  permitted  to  offer  a  single  remark  in  con- 
clusion. I  have  in  another  place  sought  to  refute  the 
contention  made  against  our  science  by  those  who  view 
the  method  of  natural  science  as  the  only  scientific  one, 
and  who  think  that  History  must  be  raised  to  the  raidc  of 
a  science  through  the  ap})lication  of  that  method.  Just 
as  if  in  the  realm  of  the  historical,  that  is,  of  the  moral 
life,  only  analogy  were  worthy  of  regard  and  not  also 
'anomaly,  the  individual,  free-will,  responsibility,  genius. 
As  if  it  were  not  a  scientific  task  to  seek  ways  of  in- 
vestigation, of  verification,  of  understancUng  for  the 
movements  and  effects  of  human  freedom  and  of  per- 
sonal peculiarities,  however  high  or  low  the  estimate 
which  may  be  placed  upon  them. 

We  certainly  possess  immediately  and  in  subjec- 
tive certainty,  an  understanding  of  human  things,  of 
every  expression  and  impression  of  man's  creation 
or  behavior  which  is  perceptible   to    us,   so    far    as    it 


AUT    AND   METHOD.  115 

is  perceptible.  What  we  have  to  do  is  to  find 
methodij,  in  order  to  secure  objective  rules  and  control 
for  this  immediate  and  subjective  grasp  of  events, 
especially  as  we  now  have  before  us,  to  represent  the 
past,  only  the  views  of  others  or  fragments  of  that  which 
once  existed.  We  need  to  ground,  sound  and  justify 
our  su])jective  kn(*\vlL'(lge.  ()uly  this  seems  able  to 
assert  itself  as  tlic  sense  of  the  historical  objectivity  so 
often  named. 

We  are  to  discover  metliods.  There  is  need  of  differ- 
ent ones  for  different  problems,  and  often  a  combination 
of  several  is  re(piired  for  the  solution  of  one  problem.  ^ 
So  long  tis  History  was  believed  to  be  essentially  politi-  j^  /'y, 
cal  history,  and  the  task  of  the  historian  was  just  to 
recount  in  new  })resentation  and  connection  what  had 
been  transmitted  about  revolutions,  wars,  state  events, 
etc.,  it  might  sufHce  to  take  for  use  from  the  best 
sources,  whi ell  liad  pcrliaps  been  critically  authenticated 
as  the  l)est,  the  material  to  l)e  wrought  into  a  book,  i 
a  lecture,  or  the  like.  But  since  the  insight  has  been 
awakened  that  also  the  arts,  jural  formations,  every- 
thing of  human  creation,  all  the  formations  character- 
izing the  moral  world,  can  and  must  be  investigated  in 
order  to  deduce  that  wliich  is  from  that  which  was, 
demands  of  a  very  different  kind  are  made  upon  our 
science.  It  lui^s  to  investigate  formations  according  to 
their  historical  connection,  formati(nis  of  which  perhaps 
only  individual  remnants  are  preserved,  to  open  fields 
hitherto  not  considered  or  treated  as  historical,  least  of 
all  by  those  who  lived  in  the  midst  of  them.  Thus 
questions  are  })ressing  upon  History  from  all  sides,  '^ 
questions  touching  things  for  the  most  part  incompa- 


116  APPENDICES. 

rably  weightier  than  the  often  very  superficial  and 
accidental  accounts  which  have  liitherto  passed  for 
History.     Is  investigation  to  lay  down  its  arms  here  ? 

When  we  enter  a  collection  of  Egyptian  antiquities, 
we  have  at  once  the  subjective  view  of  their  wonderful 
ancientness,  and  the  accompanying  strange  impression  ; 
hut  at  least  in  certain  directions  we  can  by  investigation 
come  to  more  positive  results.  Here  are  these  syenites, 
hewn  and  polished.  Here  are  these  colors,  these  woven 
.  fabrics.  What  tools,  what  metals  were  required  to  work 
such  hard  stone?  What  mechanical  contrivances  were 
needed  to  raise  such  masses  out  of  the  quany  and  put 
them  aboard  ship?  How  were  these  colors  prepared 
chemically?  Out  of  what  materials  are  these  fabrics 
made  and  whence  did  they  come  ?  In  the  way  of  such 
technological  interpretation  of  remains,  facts  are  made 
out  which  in  numerous  and  important  directions  fill  up 
our  meagre  tradition  concerning  ancient  Egypt ;  and 
these  facts  possess  a  certainty  so  much  the  greater  for 
the  indirectness  of  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
deduced. 

Many  think  it  the  part  of  criticism,  touching,  for  in- 
stance, the  constitution  of  ancient  Rome  or  Athens 
before  the  Persian  wars,  to  allow  only  that  to  pass  as 
1  \  V  ^"'p  good  history  which  is  ex})licitly  transmitted  and  attested. 
^  The  reader's  fancy  will  not  fail  to  combine  these  scanty 
notices  and  thus  to  fill  them  out  into  a  picture  ;  only, 
this  filling  out  is  commonly  a  play  of  the  fancy,  and  the 
picture  more  or  less  artificial.  Is  it  not  possible  to  find 
methods  which  will  regulate  the  process  of  such  filling- 
out,  and  give  it  a  foundation  ?  In  the  pragmatic  nature 
exhibited  by  things  of  tliis  kind  —  and  writers  should 


AUT    AND    METHOD.  117 

leave  off  misapprehending  Polybius's  expression  'prag- 
matic'—  lie  elements,  conditions,  necessities,  traces  of 
wliich,  provided  we  look  more  sliarply,  may  perhaps  Ije 
re-recognized  in  what  still  lies  before  us.  The  hyjXH 
thetical  line  wliicli  enabled  us  to  trace  that  i)ragmati(' 
nature  of  things  then  confirms  itself,  since  this  or  that 
fragment  exactly  iits  into  it. 

Wlicn  it  was  necessary  to  work  out  the  history  of  ^,  /' 
art  during  the  times  of  Raphael  and  Diirer,  not  much 
advance  could  be  made  with  the  '  sources '  and  the  criti- 
cism of  sources,  although  in  Vasari  and  othei-s,  at  least 
for  the  Italian  mastere,  was  found  just  the  external 
information  that  was  desired.  In  their  works  and  those 
of  their  German  contemporaries,  h()\\'ever,  was  found 
something  entirely  different,  exactly  the  material  for 
investigation,  though  confessedly  of  a  nature  which 
required  in  the  investigator  who  was  to  derive  exact 
results  from  it,  an  outfit  of  an  especial  kind.  He  was 
obliged  to  know  the  technique  of  painting,  in  order  to 
tlistinguisli  that  of  tlie  different  artists,  the  tint  of  each 
one's  tone,  his  chiaroscuro,  his  brush-stroke.  He  wa,s 
obliged  to  be  sure  how  Albrecht  Diirer's  eye  envisaged 
the  human  form,  else  he  could  n()t  show  whether  a 
given  crucifix  was  from  his  hand.  In  order  finally  to 
decide  whether  this  or  that  important  portrait  head  Wiis 
by  Leonardo  da  Vinci  or  Holbein,  lie  had  to  bring  to 
his  work,  so  to  speak,  a  learned  a])paratus  of  etchings, 
hand  sketches,  etc.  He  nnist  be  familiar  with  the 
mode  of  lookincf  at  thin"s  in  that  asfe,  the  rangre  of  its 
general  knowledge,  its  common  convictions,  ecclesi- 
{istical  and  i)rofane,  its  local  and  daily  histor}%  that  he  ^ 
might  bu  able  rightly  to  intfrpret  what  Wiis  presented 


118  APPENDICES. 

in  the  works  of  art  or  in  tilings  related  thereto.  He 
was  called  upon  not  only  sestlieticall}^  to  feel  but  per- 
suasively to  point  out  the  artist's  deeper  or  more  super- 
ficial view  or  intention. 

The  same  in  all  other  departments.  Only  the  deep 
and  many  sided  technical  and  special  knowledge,  ac- 
cording as  it  is  art,  law,  commerce,  agriculture,  or  the 
State  and  politics  that  is  to  be  historically  investigated, 
will  put  the  investigator  in  condition  to  ascertain  the 
methods  demanded  for  the  given  case,  and  to  woik 
with  them.  Just  so  new  methods  are  continually 
found  out  in  the  natural  sciences  to  unlock  dumb 
nature's  mysteries. 

All  such  methods  which  come  into  play  in  the  realm 
of  historical  studies  move  within  the  same  periphery 
and  have  the  same  determining  centre.  To  unite  them 
in  their  common  thought,  to  develop  their  system  and 
their  theory,  and  so  to  establish,  not  the  laws  of  objec- 
tive  History  but  the  laws  of  historical  investigation  and 
knowledge,  —  this  is  the  task  of  Wsforik. 


Mii^^-  % 


'^^ 


^ 


INDEX. 


.(Eschylus,  Droysen's  Translation 
of,  XV;  quoted  12,  ;}13. 

Alexander  the  Great,  Droysen's 
History  of,  xvii. 

Appendices,  (il  and  fol.;  charac- 
ter of,  ix,  X. 

Arndt,  E.  M.,  in  Frankfort  As- 
sembly of  1H48,  xxix. 

Aristophanes,  Droysen's  TraiLsla- 
tion  of,  xvi;  quoted  8G. 

Aristotle,  Droysen  a  connoisseur 
of,  xxxii;  (juot^^d  10,  30,  83. 

Art  and  Method,  105  and  fol. 

Arts,  the,  ami  the  Beautiful,  40. 

Authority,  the  Sphere  of,  42. 

B. 

Bacon,  F.,  quoted  80. 

Baur,  F.  C,  23. 

Beautiful,  the.  and  the  Arts,  40. 

BioLTaphical   Kxpo.'^ition,  03. 

BiofH'iiphy,  Droy.sen's,  Sketch  of, 
xiv  and  fol. 

Bodin,  Jean,  1(5,  107. 

Buckle,  H.  T.,  Hlstorj-  of  Civili- 
zation reviewed,  Gl  and  fol. 

C. 

Catastrophic  Exposition,  53. 
Cointe,  A.,  16,  70. 
Criticism,  in  History,  21  and  fol. ; 
—  of  genuineness,   22;    —  of 


earlier    and    later    forms,    23; 

—  of   correctness  or  validity, 
23;     —   of    the    sources,    24; 

—  outcome  of,  what,  25,  2(5. 

D. 

Dahlinan,  in  Frankfort  Assembly 
of  1848,  xxix. 

Dante,  <iuoted  15,  45. 

Da  Vinci,  117. 

Diacritical  procedure,  23. 

Diciearchus,  quoted  38. 

Didactic  Exposition,  53  and  fol. 

Diplomatics,  22. 

Discussive  Exposition,  55  and  fol. 

Droy.sen,  G.,  son  of  J.  G.,  vi. 

Droysen,  J.  G.,  rank  a,s  historian, 
v,  vii,  xiv  and  fol. ;  bioja'aphies, 
vi;  pupils,  vi;  .style,  v;  his  pref- 
ace to  the  "Outline,"  ix;  do. 
to  3rd  Ell.,  xi;  education,  xiv; 
early  teaching  and  works,  xv, 
xvi;  transition  to  hlstorj-,  xvi; 
History  of  Hellenism,  xvii;  its 
faults,  xvii;  tran.sition  to  mod. 
hist.,  xviii;  removal  to  Jena, 
xLx;  faith  in  a  German  Phnpire, 
xix;  Hi.story  of  Prussian  Tolicy, 
xix  and  fol. ;  Droysen  as  a 
teacher,  xxi  and  fol.;  his  jwr- 
sonality,  xxiii;  liis  Chri.stianity, 
xxiv;  manliness,  xxvii;  political 
activity,  xxviii  and  fol. ;  briefer 
works,    xxxii;     relations    with 


120 


LNDEX. 


Ranke,     xxxiii ;      illness     and 

death,  xxxiv. 
Duncker,  Max,  biog.  sketches  of 

Droysen,  vi. 
Diirer,  Albrecht,  117. 

E. 

Elevation,  the,  of  History  to  rank 
of  a  Science,  01  and  fol. 

Encyclopedia  and  Methodology 
of  History,  Droysen's  lectures 
on,  ix,  xxiv,  8. 

Ends  in  History,  46  and  fol. 

End,  the  highest,  47  and  fol. 

Eroica,  the,  of  Beethoven,  79. 

Exposition,  interrogative,  51,  52; 
—  recitative,  52,  53;  — didactic, 
58,  54;  — discussive,  55  and  fol. 

P. 

Family,  the,  38. 
Franck,  Sebastian,  107. 
Frankfort,  National  Assembly  at, 

in  1848,  xxix. 
Frederic  the  Great,  quoted  54. 
Freedom,  meaning  of,  44,  45. 
Forms,    the,    in    which    History 

works,  36  and  fol. 

G. 

Gellius,  Aulus,  quoted  50. 

Genesis,  quoted  93. 

Gerviiuis,  16,  50. 

Gottingen,   liistorical    School    of 

in  18th  Century,  4. 
yvwdt  cravTOv,  44. 
Gray    Cloister,    Gymnasium    of, 

Dtoysen  teaches  at,  xiv,  xxi. 
Green,     Arnold,     Esq.,    learned 

Hellenist,  38. 
Griinhagen,  Prof.,  of  Breslau,  vil. 


H. 

Hegel,  46. 

Hegelianism,     Droysen's,      xvii, 

XX, 

Hellenism,  Droysen's  History  of, 
xvii. 

Herder,  54. 

Herodotus,  quoted  50. 

Historical  Method,  the,  12  and 
fol. 

Historical  Studies,  present  condi- 
tion and  views  of,  3,  61  and  fol. 

Historical  Writing,  present  ten- 
dency of,  viii;  ancient  and 
medifBval,  106  and  fol. 

Historik,  the,  or  Outline  of  the 
Principles  of  History.  Charac- 
ter of,  vii,  16,  47. 

History,  various  views  of  its  na- 
ture, 3  and  fol. ;  nature,  0,  90 
and  fol. ;  involves  idea  of  time, 
10;  correlative  of  'moral 
world,'  10;  relation  of  past  and 
present  in,  11;  deals  only  with 
what  is  human,  12. 

Holbein,  117. 

Ilolstein,  and  Schleswig,  xxviii. 

Humboldt,  Wm.  von,  importance 
of  for  History,  7  and  fol.,  16. 


Ideal  partnerships,  the,  of  Society, 
39  and  fol. 

Illumination,  the  English,  107. 

Interpretation,  in  History,  2()  and 
fol.;  jDragmatic,  27;  of  condi- 
tions, 27;  psychological,  28; 
of  ideas,  30;  its  questions,  31 
and  fol. 

Interrogation,  in  History,  21. 

Interrogative  Exposition,  51,  52. 


INDEX. 


121 


Tnventioii,  in  History,  18  and  fol. 
Isaacssoliii,  I'lof.,  vii. 

J. 

John,  Gospel  of,  (luotcd,  xxiv,  49. 
Justice,  the  Sj^here  of,  41. 


Kant,  (!(■),  (iT. 

"  Kiel  Address,"  the,  xxviii. 
Kirehoft',  A.,  Greek  Alphabet,  21. 
Kosei",  K.,  Prof.,  of  Berlin,  vii. 
Kriiger,    Dr.    II.,    Biography    of 
Droysen,  vi,  xiv  and  fol. 


Languajiis,  the,  and  Speech,  •)'.). 
Leibnitz,  107. 
Leo,  xvii,  54. 
Leasing,  IG,  54,  87. 

M. 

Macavday,  Essays,  108. 
Materials,  historical,   18  ami  fol. 
Matter  for  the  work  of  History, 

.35,  m. 
Maurenbrecher,  Prof.,  compares 

Droy.sen  with  Ranke,  xxxiii. 
Method,  and  Art,   105  and  fol. ; 

the  doctrine  of,    17   and   fol.; 

the  historical,  12. 
Methods,  scientific,  15. 
Monographic  Exposition,  5o. 
Monuments,    historical,    defined, 

10. 
Midler,  Johannes  von,  54. 

N. 

Natural  partnersliips,  the,  of  So- 
ciety, -w  and  fol. 
Nature,  and  History,  00  and  fol. 


Neigid)orhood,  the,  o8. 
Niebuhr,  tjuoted  18. 


Partnerships,  the  natural,  f>f  So- 
ciet}',  ;J7  and  fol. ;  the  ideal,  ^0 
and  fol. ;  the  practical, 41  and  fol. 

People,  the,  30. 

Plato,  (pioted,  40. 

Polybius,  l(i,  117;  use  of  the  term 
'pragmatic,'  10,  20,  107. 

I'ractical  partnerships,  the,  41 
and  fol. 

Pragmatic  sources,  20;  interpre- 
tation, 27;  exposition,  55. 
Comp.,  19,  20,  107. 

Praying  Boy,  the,  (statue)  81. 

Pi-esentation,  systematic,  the  doc- 
trine of,  49  and  fol. 

l*i-inclples  of  History  (Historik), 
Outline  of,  3  and  fol. 

Prize  of  1000  Thalei-s,  rec'd  by 
Droysen,  xxi. 

I'robleni,  the,  of  this  '»utliue,  10. 

Property,  the  Sphere  of,  41. 

Prussian  Policy,  Droysen's  Ili.s- 
toiy  of,  xix. 

Prutz,  Hans,  mistaken  view  of 
touching  Droy.sen,  xxiv. 

Pufendorff,  107. 

R. 

Ranke,  54;    —  and  Droysen,  v, 

xxxiii. 
Raphael,  78,  117. 
BecfUsstaat,  the,  42. 
Recitative  Expo.sition,  52,  53. 
Religions,  the,  and  the  Sacred,  40. 
Remains,  historical,  kinds,  18,  19. 
Roe.skild,  assembly  of  Estates  at 

in  1844,  xxviii. 


122 


INDEX. 


Roman  Law,  of  Twelve  Tables, 
quoted  43. 

S. 

Sacred,  the,  and  Religions,  40. 
Schaeffle,  10. 
Schleicher,  quoted  40. 
Schleswig,  and  Holstein,  xxviii. 
Sciences,  the,  and  the  True,  40. 
Society,  the  Sphere  of,  41. 
Sources,  historical,    defined,    10; 

derived,  defuied,  20. 
Space,   correlative  to  Nature,  as 

Time  to  History,  97. 
Speech  and  the  Languages,  30. 
State,  the,  42,  43, 
Sybel,  von,  xxxviii,  04.  [fol. 

System,  the  doctrine  of,  32  and 

T. 

Tables,  Twelve,  of  Roman  Law, 

quoted  43. 
Thiers,  French  Revolution,  108. 
Thucydides,  10,  73. 


Time,  a  correlative  of  History, 
98  and  fol. 

Translation,  the  present,  charac- 
ter of,  vii. 

Translator,  Preface  of,  v. 

Tribe,  the,  38. 

I'rue,  the,  and  the  Sciences,  40. 


Voltaire,  108. 

W. 

Wachsmuth,  50. 

Wahrnehmen,  significance  of  its 
etymology,  103. 

Wars  for  Freedom,  Droysen's 
History  of,  xviii. 

Work,  the,  of  History,  43  and  fol. 

Workers,  the,  of  History,  43  and 
fol. 

Y. 

York  of  Wartenburg,  Field  Mar- 
shal, Droysen's  Biography  of, 
xviii. 


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